Fireworks
by FlamesEmbrace
Summary: Ah, spring... The songs of birds, the smell of flowers, the gentle THWAK of Cupid's shruiken... For some, love hurts. On kapaa, chocolate syrup and the absurdity of True Love. Fluffy SasuNaru. Complete! R to be safe...
1. The Sweet Sound of Fuck You Anyway

**Title**: Fireworks

**Author**: Ember

**Pairings**: SasuNaru, almost exclusively

**A/N**: Alright. So this is the A/N for the whole story, 'cause I'm taking them out of the other chapters. Bwahah. Aren't I thoughtful for all of you? This is the first fic I finished- yes, finished- in four years. Just a nice, short fluffie for the SasuNaru fans out there, hope you enjoy it. It takes place right after the Zabuza-Haku incident, so there shouldn't be many spoilers. Reviews are appreciated. (I have eighty at the time I'm writing this. God, you all rock.) :D

Beta-ed by Amai from Chapter Seven to Epilogue. Thanks, Amai:D

Naruto © Kishimoto.

**Warnings**: Yaoi(you don't say!), occasional humor of poor quality, profanity, some violence, sexual content.

This story is rated **Sprite** for delicious lemon-lime goodness. Ph33r.

Art for ya'll, cause you rock: w w w .deviantart.c o m / deviation / 1 4 4 6 9 3 2 5 /

Take out the spaces. :D I might edit this if'n I get any more art done for this story; prolly not though. Thanks for any reviews given or any future ones!

-

I don't feel the way I've ever felt.

I know.

I'm gonna smile and not get worried.

I try but it shows.

-

Anyone can make what I have built.

And better now

Anyone can find the same white pills.

It takes my pain away.

-

Yamanaka Ino took a long time to get ready. Shikamaru stretched, leaned into the chair's embrace, and shrugged against the cloth, grunting at the thought. It wasn't like _he_ was in a hurry to get anywhere. Leaning back, he caught sight of the clouds through the window and smiled to himself. It was another beautiful day. The sun kept the room steadily warm, just short of hot, and so long as Choji didn't complain he wasn't unhappy. Quite the opposite, in fact. It wasn't like he was looking _forward_ to another day of D-level drudgery in the name of Konoha and the Ninjas and all of that.

The flow of the shower stopped suddenly, and the door opened with a slam. A pink towel wrapped around her waist and her arms folded severely over her chest, Ino poked the upper part of her body through the steam flowing out of the bathroom, her usually pretty eyes narrowed dangerously. "Shikamaru! We're out of hot water!"

The shadow-ninja shrugged, slowly, eyes closed against the glare of the sun through the window. He didn't even bother to turn and look at his teammate; Ino would be fuming, her hair wet and clinging to the sides of her face, her mouth twisted into an irrationally angry grimace and her eyes glittering. "What do you expect me to do?" he asked, the words drawn out. "It's not my fault. I don't take forty-minute showers every day." It was true; and while Shikamaru was very brief in his daily preparations, Ino could spend over an hour in that room, showering, fiddling with her hair, making sure she safeguarded her face so tightly against breakouts that her skin was, for the first two hours of morning, almost hard and completely dry of any natural oil. It reminded the other two members of Team 10 vaguely of an Egyptian mummy's distorted, preserved face. Shikamaru was always facinated by her. If this was how a female started her day, he never wanted to get married.

The girl ninja fumed, then the bathroom door slammed shut. Choji looked up, watched Shikamaru's minimalistic shrug, then mimicked it and stuffed a handful of cheet-o's down his throat.

A few minutes later, the three of them were walking, slowly, to where Asuma would meet them and give them their mission. Shikamaru, his arms folded behind his head, walked behind Ino and right in front of Choji, unconciously pouting as the girl in front of him alternatively sprung ahead and lagged back, constantly looking in all directions as if certain someone, anyone, was about to leap from behind a bush and assassinate her.

"He's not hiding," he said, the sixth time Ino, to her own mind subtely, looked behind her and glanced into the dark shadows of a bush. He rolled his eyes, making it amply obvious to the girl who had whirled around to glare at him.

Mustering as much dignity as she could manage, Ino replied, "I haven't the slightest clue who you're talking about."

Choji snorted into a handful of potato chips, and Shikamaru shrugged ironically. "Whatever," he said, then nodded towards the street to their right, where Team 7 was waiting, doubtlessly, for the arrival of their sensei. Naruto was yelling something at Sasuke, who looked bored and drawled something back. Sakura, looking mutually annoyed and left out, hovered on the edge of the conversation.

Ino's eyes grew wide and doe-like, and her hands immediately leapt to her hair, fettering with the lengths, toying with the tail. Shikamaru sighed, and Choji eyed the proceedings curiously while crumpling the metallic-colored snack bag into a ball in one pudgy hoof.

Sasuke didn't notice. If he even saw Ino, he thought nothing of it; his reply had gotten Naruto started and they had begun to bicker, their voices clearing the distance between Teams 7 and 10, if not the precise words. It was probably the same old pointless argument, though, and Shikamaru had long, long since gone past the point where he cared.

Finally, Ino had pranced and paced enough that Sakura had noticed her and, left with the two face-saving options of actually going over to the other three, which would be akin to admitting that she was trying to get Sasuke's attention while creating the confrontation she'd been trying to avoid, or leaving to go meet Asuma, she turned on her heel and Team 10 continued their walk.

"I don't," Shikamaru said after a long moment of silence, "see where it's worth it." He turned around, throwing a glance over his shoulder; the bustle of people had still a while to go before they completely blocked the other Team from view.

Ino pouted again. "My hair looked terrible," she said, as opposed to answering his unphrased question. "How humiliating."

Choji shrugged. "I don't think he noticed."

Ticked, the girl snatched Choji's third bag of chips from his hand, still only half-eaten, and threw it into the nearest trash-can to join the piles of grease-stained paper, half-eaten food and other pungant refuse. Choji stared after it in horror, obviously comparing priorities, and only Ino's exasperated sigh and fingers digging into his arm kept him from going after it.

"It's such a bitch to take care of," she continued in vein, and Choji had to stop and think before he realized Ino was talking about her hair, still, not him. "Impossible to take care of in the morning."

"So cut it," Shikamaru suggested, with a slight, quiet grunt. "Why go to the trouble? It's only hair." Choji, who had his hair always cut very short, nodded enthusiastic agreement.

Ino was still pouting. "Sasuke likes girls with long hair," she protested.

Shikamaru hadn't seen anything in Sasuke's attitude towards Ino to suggest that he liked any such thing. "How the hell do you know?" he asked, looking at Ino out of the corner of his eye.

Ino snorted. "Everyone knows," she replied, as if shocked that Shikamaru didn't know, too. The shadow-nin shrugged. He was certain everyone knew- everyone, that is, that also knew Sasuke's birthday, astrological sign, shoe size, daily horoscope, address, favorate color and preferred brand of shampoo. Which was close enough to everyone to be depressing, and a little sad.

Normally, he would drop it at that. But today, "I somehow doubt that," slipped out of his mouth. Ino turned on him, looking severely ticked off.

"What, you think he likes girls with short hair? What the hell makes you think that?"

Shikamaru looked over his shoulder. Sakura was leaning, looking irratated, against a wall, while Sasuke and Naruto, dropping into chairs beside a small coffee table in an outdoor cafe, had proceeded to prop their arms on their elbows, clasping hands, glaring across at the other's eyes while feverently trying to force the other's arm to the wood.

He shouldn't have said it out loud, but he did. "What makes you think he likes girls?"

There was a long moment of tense silence while Ino and Choji followed his gaze. Naruto's knuckles were an inch from the table, and he was leaning forward, desperately fighting to lift his hand. Shikamaru shook his head, slightly; it was significantly more difficult to push _up_ than _down_, and Sasuke still didn't look like he was even trying. Of course, Sasuke wouldn't look like he was trying until he died; he kept effort from his face as naturally as any emotion. They watched, the rest of Konoha flowing past them as if they were inanimate, poles stretching above the crowds, murmmuring in their morning conversations. There was a slight struggle, then Naruto's hand hit with a thud they could almost hear as far away as they were against the table. They _could_ hear the blonde shinobi's shouts at Sasuke, that he had cheated, that he was an arrogant prick who didn't deserve to be a ninja at all.

Ino turned, the side of her lip perked slightly above the white curve of her right canine. "That's revolting, Shikamaru."

He shrugged. It wasn't worth getting into a fight over.

-

Uzumaki Naruto almost knocked over the chair, standing up in sudden, fevered haste, shaking out the throbbing muscles of his arm. "You were cheating, Sasuke! Your elbow wasn't touching the table the whole time! I saw! I saw! You cheated!"

Sasuke's eyebrow arched above his dark eye. He waited until Naruto's hasty accusations had subsided slightly before replying, his voice cold and dismissing. "You, I should remind you, were standing up and pulling your hand up with both arms." His head tilted slightly to the side. "You're making an idiot out of yourself, Naruto. Calm down."

The clear, emotionless voice only stoked the fires inside Naruto. "That's a lie!" he claimed, though he did know it wasn't. He'd just wanted to beat Sasuke, this once, and prove that he was at least as good as the black-haired shinobi, that he was strong and worthy of the title Hokage.

Well. One day he would beat Sasuke without any doubt behind it, and then they would all see. He curled the fingers of his hand into a fist and locked glares with the other boy, smiling challenge.

Sasuke's calm glare responded, saying as clearly as if he had articulated the thought that he found no challenge whatsoever in Naruto. A white tinging appearing in Naruto's knuckles. _Someday, Sasuke. Let's see how arrogant you are when I'm Hokage and you're taking orders from me._

Sakura looked from Naruto to Sasuke, then back to the blonde. He looked like he was expecting daggers to shoot from his eyes, and at this point in time she wouldn't be surprised if they did, from either boy. Not to even think about their earlier behavior, with Naruto shouting loud enough that half of Konoha heard him, and plopping into a chair just to arm-wrestle the other Genin. _He's such an idiot. How embarrassing._

Sakura scanned the treeline, grinning as she caught sight of a couple splashes of white and pink. It had been a long winter, but the cherry blossoms were starting to bloom, which was a sure sign that, even if it was still too cold to go without a jacket, it was quickly coming upon spring. She eyed Sasuke with the general air of a predator eyeing prey. Or, possibly, a predator in heat eyeing another. He caught her in the corner of his eye and gifted her a glare slightly more sour than what he had turned on Naruto, which caused her heart to immediately plunge. _But... It's almost spring. Spring is the time where love blossoms._ She bit her lip hopefully. _Sasuke... Can't you see I'm in love with you? You spend your whole time worrying about being stronger than Naruto. He's ruining us._ Not that, deep inside, Sakura wasn't clearly aware that there was no 'us' between her and Sasuke. She still blamed Naruto for her chaste position with ferver.

Sasuke watched Sakura turn slowly away and shifted his glare to settle back on the blue-eyed shinobi before him. Naruto was going off on the familiar vein of his future as Hokage. Sasuke smiled, slightly; it was a derisive smile, at once putting Naruto off his ranting and staining his knuckles, defined by the tight fist he had pulled his hand into, a bright ivory. Sasuke felt- well. Sasuke didn't feel. He thought, with the same detachment he kept perpetually between himself and his emotions, that Naruto was being an idiot. What had he expected? Every day, the blonde was an asshole, alternatively challenging Sasuke and fawning over Sakura.

And at the same time, he thought... He bit down on his lip, turning his head in the pretence of scanning the streets for Kakashi, looking anywhere but at livid blue eyes. He had almost lost their little bout a moment ago, when he had wrapped his fingers around Naruto's hand and the tip of his index digit had graced something hard and almost scaley, a livid red welt on the other Genin's hand. A huge, blistered scar, scarlet-colored, the exact size of a hypothetical scar one could make by one driving a kunai into one's own palm to pull poison from one's body, preventing the team from having to turn back. Which was, of course, precisely what it was. It had stirred memories, quite a few memories, not all too distant but seeming lifetimes ago. Glaring at the demon's vessel from across the round table, he remembered pained moans while poison drained from Naruto's blood from a wound self-inflicted with his own weapon.

It had been stupid of him, but brave. Or maybe the other way around; maybe brave, but stupid. The two terms seemed to coincide quite often, especially around Naruto, and sometimes they blended so well it was difficult to tell one from the other. He was endearing in this way, and completely defiant of expectations. Who would expect a fox to be an idiot? Who would expect it to be capable and willing to give up everything for another person's benefit? Foxes were not pack animals, they weren't wolves; their top priority was always to themselves. Who would expect one to arise that so contradicted that?

But Naruto defied more than just the nature of the fox. After all, who would expect an Uchiha to be any better? To give up everything, to give up dreams and aspirations and his own life, for... Anything? Oh, yes, the blonde shinobi found a way to defy every expectation ever set, to change everything from what it was supposed to be, from the nature of the vessel of the kyuubi to Sasuke's first kiss.

Had that been why he had been willing to die for him?

Sasuke shivered and pushed the thought away. He couldn't recall his thoughts- couldn't recall precisely thinking- when he had moved, couldn't remember the moment where he'd realized he was willing to move so decisively into a trap like that, like he had against Haku so many days- days? not years- ago, and for no one but some blonde idiot who painted profanity on the faces of the city's heroes. His body hadn't moved on its own, though, despite his words to Naruto at the time, it couldn't have; he had long since passed the point in his training where the muscles moved in automatic response to emotion. He had long since cut his heart off from his reflexes even if only by intense dicipline. He didn't really want to remember why he had saved Naruto. He didn't want it to control him, didn't want it to mean so much to him. Didn't want anyone to mean that much. But somehow, something did, and it did frighten him on a level he didn't want to acknolege.

He remembered the feel of a scar under his palm, and shivered, even though it wasn't that cold of a day and the sun was bright enough that in full light it was almost enough to take off his jacket. Trying to distract himself, he turned his observations outward, to the shifting crowds of people around him. Naruto and Sakura were arguing, Sakura sounding genuinely annoyed and Naruto sounding just meekly appreciative to have her attention. Sasuke smiled to himself and listened to their voices while continuing off in his own mind. He didn't belong in the conversation, anyway. He didn't belong in the knots of people holding irrelevent conversations with hypocrites constantly judging their every move. He didn't belong with anyone, just off to the side, ignored but present, listening to conversations and training almost constantly towards his own dreams.

He belonged alone until someone else drifted to the sidelines and trained beside him, watching him, measuring himself against him. Then, he wasn't alone anymore.

Was anyone made to be alone? Did anyone belong alone?

Was someone else actually pushed to where he was constantly fighting his way to be? Were the same people constantly badgering him to come talk to them, come hang around with them, come sleep with them- were they pushing Naruto away towards the edges while they tried to draw Sasuke out?

Had that been why he had been willing to die for him?

Or was Naruto not pushed at all, but had he come on his own, just a few times every week, starting back when they learned to climb the tree- had be come on his own to train beside Sasuke because he, too, had a dream to live up to and was working his way to the top, just like the other boy?

_To become Hokage._ Everyone knew what Naruto's dream was. _To make everyone acknolege me._ No one paid any mind to it. No one believed it.

That hadn't been the reason. Why would Sasuke almost die for a dream that had no hopes of realization?

Sakura frowned at Naruto, who scratched innocently at the back of his head, fingers buried in the messy blonde hair. Sasuke, looking mildly amused, was watching their tirade though his eyes were slightly glazed over and as much as the pink-haired shinobi wanted to believe it was with love and admiration for her she had to admit that he had his head in the clouds. She opened her mouth to try and talk to him then closed it as something moved off the edge of her sight.

"Kakashi!" She caught sight of the disturbance in the air moments before the other two did. "You're late. Again."

She didn't even really pay attention to his reply. Her eyes had settled again on Sasuke, who had broken out of his thoughts like a dolphin breaking the still surface of water and was watching their sensei intently. An errant tendril of wind brought the scent of cherry blossoms from the edge of the woods.

_end chapter one _


	2. Kapaa and FishRelated Philosophy

**Title**: Fireworks

**Author**: Ember (the great and terrible)

-----

It's a lie. A kiss with opened eyes.

And she's not breathing back.

Anything but bother me.

(It takes my pain away)

Never mind these are horrid times.

Oh oh oh

I can't let it bother me.

--

Kakashi smiled and ran a finger down the metal edge of his head protector. "We're here," he announced, twitching the band up and down an eighth of an inch in a makeshift salute.

Sakura, who had been walking uncomfortably close to Sasuke for the past few minutes, her hands held behind her back, turned emerald eyes from where they were locked onto the Uchiha's jawline to glower at her sensei. "We'd noticed," she drawled sarcastically. Kakashi grinned at her, used by now to her temper, and the smile of acknowledgment was always enough to revert her back to her normal cheer.

Kakashi gestured at the large Shinobi building, where all requests for ninja aid stockpiled, waiting for people to come and select a particularly nasty burden for small children and teenagers who fancied themselves Genin. Of course, the three _had_ known they were at their goal when the building loomed over them; it had always been their first stop, and their last, as well, bearing dirty knees, newly-paved roads, or furious cats. Or, of course, a signed note from a bridge-builder proclaiming the job complete.

"Kakashi!" The official inside behind one of the long tables looked up and flashed a white grin at the four shinobi. "Listen, Kakashi; Hokage-sama told me to tell you-"

"That's he's very sorry about the mistake with Tazuna. That he gave the mission to us as opposed to Jounin. I know, he's told me before. He's told them before. You all can drop it now." Kakashi sighed gustily and his shoulders moved almost imperceptively up and down. Naruto's brow furrowed; the demon vessel was uncertain about what was bothering Kakashi. They had completed the mission, hadn't they? "What do you all have for us today?"

The technician looked over to the stacks of papers piled all over the counters, obviously nervous. "Well... Hokage-sama was _going_ to excuse Team 7 from having to do any more missions until they had recovered. Naruto and Sasuke, especially, did far more than is usually expected from Genin...."

Kakashi rolled his eyes. "Don't give me that. You all are always overburdened, trying to get shinobi to take tasks that've been sitting on the shelf gathering dust for weeks. You have to have something to throw onto their shoulders..."

A single dark eyebrow rose. "I did say, 'going to,' Kakashi," the technician reminded him ironically. "As it is, Naruto's latest.... what did Hokage-sama call it?- his latest creative self-expression, I suppose is close enough, was ample proof that at least one of Team 7's members is fully recovered." Four pairs of accusing eyes drifted to Naruto, who somehow contrived to look entirely innocent while simultaneously very much proud of himself.

"Honestly, Naruto." Sakura sounded disgusted. "What did he do this time?" Naruto's pranks had slowed down drastically since he had graduated, but they had not by any means stopped entirely. The memories of his 'improvements' on Mt. Hokage had become legends preserved forever by the faint red stripes still dripping down the grand and gallant faces.

_None of you guys could do something this horrible- but I can! I'm incredible!_

"Honestly, Naruto." Now the technician spoke directly to him, and if Naruto detected the slight change in tone, from 'speaking to adult' to 'speaking to animal, to be respected but not liked' it only showed in a slight shadow flashing across his face, not breaking his angelic mask. "The defacing of the Hokage statue you might have one day lived down. But did you have to stoop to _feces_, and in a direct attack on the Fourth? Lord, Naruto- he's going to spend days trying to clean off his windowsills."

For one moment, the calm, innocent facade shattered as Naruto snickered loudly, quelling the sound after it had escaped and regaining composure remarkably. A smile of amusement flickered for an imperceptible moment across Sasuke's face. Sakura looked irritated. Kakashi looked exasperated. The technician looked indignant.

"Anyway," he continued, glaring at the blonde for another moment before turning back to Kakashi. "We decided, he and I and a few others, that since your team completed their last mission with such a high degree of success for their current levels, perhaps another C-level mission is called for."

Naruto's mask shattered so completely and quickly it was impossible to tell that he had even been quiet and calm before in his life. "Yeah!" he cried, pumping his fist in the air. "Some more fun! We get another hard mission!" If this was Hokage-sama's way of punishing him for that little joke he should do it more often!

The technician's grin could only be described as malicious. "Of course," he said, spreading his hands happily. "We live to serve."

--

An hour later, Naruto felt as if his spine was going to snap in two. His hands rubbed raw on the rope he was clutching like a lifeline, he backed a pace away, grunted, and pulled his arms back, fervently wishing the shoulders didn't feel like they were about to pop out. The slight waves of the muddied- therefore somewhat pungent- water splashed up and down his legs, silt becoming lodged between the fabric of his clothes. "If that smirking bastard was here," he growled to the net, "I'd kill him. He's obviously doing a terrible job of serving, why should he live?"

"He wasn't saying he lives to serve you, idiot," Sasuke replied, dryly, looking as if he towed in three-ton fishnets with the help of two other teenagers on a daily basis. The splashes of lake water hadn't even messed up his hair; even Sakura, who looked less pleased than Naruto and was busily getting herself worked up over the fact that she was being punished for Naruto's immaturity, had streaks of mud down her face and thoroughly mixed in with her rose-colored hair, and her clothes were in disarray. She was even less happy about the prospect of looking like this in front of Sasuke, though to her credit that didn't stop her from wading into the water beside the two boys.

"Then who was he talking about, asshole?" the blonde shot back. "You? Well, of course! You're Uchiha Sasuke! We ALL live to serve _you._"

Sakura muttered something neither boy could hear over the splashing but the hopeful tone was obviously less discreet than she would have hoped, and it made it obvious enough that both Naruto and Sasuke could piece together, "I wish."

They both ignored it, though. "He was talking about Konoha. About how-" a grunt as he pulled himself up onto the beach, gracefully tugging his side of the net with him "-he serves them, and he assigns us to serve them." A cascade of shimmering silver fish flowed up on the banks after Sasuke and the newly-beached Sakura, who gave one last moaning jerk before her side of the net was grounded. Naruto quickly backed up, slipping twice on the smelly mud before finally getting his third of the catch onto the shore.

It looked less impressive than it had felt. Still, Naruto had never seen so many fish before in his life. The silver mound had to be more than a thousand, writhing, dripping, gleaming. It was beautiful in its silver incandescence almost as much as it was revolting, the way that many slimy creatures were writhing, their gills flapping out in desperate search for air. Somewhat sad, too, Naruto concluded. They were all fighting for their lives. He'd fought for his life before, and he knew how it felt; knew what futility felt like when it finally crashed onto your shoulders.

But then... they were fish. Life all fell back into perspective, and he was suddenly very hungry. Maybe he would get shrimp ramen for dinner tonight. They didn't make fish ramen. Maybe that was good; he didn't think he'd like fish, even though the dying creatures themselves didn't smell quite so bad when they were still barely living as he'd suspected they would when the technician had given them their assignment. Shrimp would be good, though. Some variety; he's had pork three nights in a row and alternated chicken with beef curry for two weeks before that...

Adult workers grabbed the mesh with calloused hands and proceeded to haul the weakly-thrashing seafood towards monstrous carts. Kakashi gave them a quiet smile and a wave, and they were gone.

"Good work, guys, that's two of the three," Kakashi cajoled. "Only one more to go, right down there." He pointed to the other end of the lake, barely visible in the distance.

Naruto groaned. "This is crap," he complained bitterly, his arms folded behind his head while he walked, Sakura between him and Sasuke. "Sensei, why is this mission C-level? It doesn't seem that much harder than what we've been doing..."

Kakashi rolled his head back to glare heavenward, then, without turning, shrugged. "D-level, Naruto, means that there is no or negligible danger to the shinobi, and it's a chance to practice skills without being put in harm's way. What you've been doing-" he didn't have to include the 'for the most part'- "is D-level; you aren't in danger, nor are you overworked or drained. D-level is _only_ to practice skills, not build stamina, which is why it's commonplace for Genin to take place in both D- and C-level missions." As always when he explained things to Naruto, he was spitting out mouthfuls, slow and simple. "C-level, however, is a harder or more complex mission that requires stamina for its completion. As a result, it usually involves more danger to the shinobi than D-level and can also require that one leave the village, where one's protection is guaranteed. C-level weeds those who don't really know what they're getting in to from those serious about becoming ninjas." The sensei's glare fixed onto Naruto and spoke without words, "So if you're serious, shut your mouth."

It was, however, Sakura who spoke next. This cheered Kakashi immensely; unlike her teammate, Sakura rarely asked stupid questions and only asked anything when she couldn't puzzle out the answer for herself, which was rare enough. "But there were workers back there, who seemed perfectly capable of handling the weight," she said, sounding puzzled. "Why don't they bring in the nets, too? Why go to the trouble and expense of paying for a C-level mission twice a month to replenish supplies?"

Kakashi gifted her a smile and turned back to face their path. "Well, Sakura, the truth is- they haven't been willing to pull in their own nets for a long time, now. They refuse to, and have been more than willing to pay for the Genin and Chuunin to do it for them. They say they kept seeing sea monsters."

Two of the party suddenly stopped in their tracks and if Kakashi hadn't seen them, Sasuke would have been more than willing to continue the walk without them. This conversation was going a way he wasn't fond of and he had the feeling that it would end up with Naruto and Sakura bitching the rest of the mission. As if he didn't have enough to be annoyed about, with Sakura's clinginess and Naruto's.... Narutoness. He wished he didn't have to be part of a team at all...

"You didn't just say..." Naruto looked petrified.

Sasuke rolled his black eyes, glaring at the sky in annoyance. "Don't be such an idiot. You aren't going to be eaten by a _kappa_, Naruto." The blonde's blue eyes flickered to Sakura, who was staring out at the lake, then back across the dark surface. He wasn't scared of sea monsters. At least, he didn't think he was. He just didn't like the way the water looked, so deep and dark and secretive... But it was calm. So calm, with such a perfect and unbroken surface. Naruto knew quite a bit about deep, dark and secretive things with calm surfaces, and he had seen what happened when monsters broke through the facade.

And just on cue, the dark-eyed shinobi spoke again, grinning maliciously. "If a _kappa_ attacks you, idiot, I'll protect you."

And suddenly, all introspeculation stopped. "The hell you will," Naruto growled loudly, catching up to Sasuke in three quick steps. His thoughts quickly changed from contemplation of mysterious beasts in dark depths to himself holding a massive Loch Ness-type monster away from a wailing, cringing Sasuke with one casual hand, and he grinned to himself at the thought of himself, the hero, the stronger one, lording it over the black-haired shinobi. There was no chance Sasuke was going to save him again!

Sakura smiled at Sasuke's retreating back, then, deciding that his promise to save someone who was threatened was not exclusively for Naruto. _It was sort of aimed at me, promising to save me while making it _look_ like another attack on Naruto,_ she realized suddenly, with swift and brutal decisiveness. Had Sasuke been glowering at the strutting blonde just then, or discreetly looking over his shoulder at Sakura? _I might have lost his first kiss-_ now _there_ was an embarrassing memory- _but I came so very close to getting his second. _She could never forget that moment, talking with Sasuke outside the school, then he had leaned in and they had almost touched, almost finally showed their true feelings....

Then, of course- then he had left and come back entirely changed. But... he was shy. It was alright; she was shy, too, and they could take their time, come to it slowly, learn to love each other. It would work. She knew it.

A small, red-orange flag marked where the third and final spot was, and Kakashi jumped into the crook of a tree branch to watch his three students set to work. He smiled to himself; for all that Sasuke was selfish, Naruto obsessed with his own glory and Sakura obsessed with Sasuke, they really did work magnificently together. The dark-haired shinobi immediately took the far right position, Naruto the far left, Sakura between the two, like she always was. The edge of the net, hooked to buoys that glittered a neon yellow color on the dark glittering surface of the water, was a little further out than the other two had been, but despite their earlier hesitation neither of the three paused now, not when they'd already accepted the mission. Sasuke threw his loose white shirt onto the ground; Naruto, who didn't care what happened to his clothing nor wanted to spend ten minutes getting his jacket and bulkier shirt off, jumped into the water with all of his orange garb intact. Sakura waded in after them until it was obvious she wasn't going to avoid getting her blush-colored hair wet, and then she hesitantly swam after them, reaching the buoys last of all. Sasuke, of course, had gotten there first; Kakashi couldn't hear but as he carefully lifted the tip of his leaf head protected slightly to expose the blood coloring of Sharingan, he could see Sasuke's lips moving in the correct rhythm it would take to taunt Naruto over the fact. "I was getting tired of waiting for you," the ebony-haired shinobi was saying, his long fingers intertwining with the mesh of the net.

Naruto's lip stuck out. While he was saying nothing and wasn't facing Kakashi- his own hands were buried into the mesh and he was kicking backwards furiously- he may as well have had a neon sign hovering over his head that said _stupid Sasuke always has to show off and take his shirt off in front of Sakura._

He actually _said_, "Then why didn't you do the stupid mission by yourself, asshole? If you're so great?"

Sasuke's head moved slightly downward; Kakashi judged a derisive snort. "And let you off the hook? Don't be such an idiot. You have to work at it, or you'll always be the loser."

Sakura had gotten there by then, was slowly treading water- by the slight twitches in her upper back that meant motion of the lower back and legs- while she threaded the mesh netting through her fingers and slowly swam backwards. It was easier to pull the net along in the deeper water, though it didn't seem, by the tension in the three sets of arms, to be too easy a feat. Kakashi smiled. It wasn't the most challenging the three had ever seen- even discluding the Tazuna-thing- but it definitely seemed difficult enough, considering that it was only C-ranked because the shinobi had judged the fishermen's tales too ludicrous to award B-ranking but too descriptive- and just barely possible; maybe, by slight stretch, feasible- to be D-ranked.

The minute the bottom of the net touched the muddy bottom of the lake- Kakashi noted the slight jerk in arm muscles that meant it was suddenly slightly harder to pull the logged burden- Naruto and Sasuke broke off and swam in opposite directions around the net, bringing the far side to Sakura's side, and the three quickly tied the whole thing together. Even though the glittering, glass-like surface, Kakashi could see the wide stretch of net, dotted with silver swarms of fish that darted across their mesh cage, drifting out beneath the three shinobi's feet. They began dragging the net slowly towards the shore again, their speed decreasing as more and more of the net caught on the bottom and they had to drag it. Finally, first Sasuke's, then Sakura's, then finally Naruto's feet hit the bottom and they walked slowly, repeating their earlier performance, with Sasuke in the 'lead,' Sakura laboring the most behind and Naruto struggling to keep up with his rival and slipping around in the mud in the attempt. No longer up to their noses in lake water, Sasuke and Naruto had begun snarking at each other again, but Kakashi no longer bothered to try and pick out the individual words. He slid the metal of his head protector back over his left eye, shutting off his extraordinary sight and leaving him feeling blind, cut off. He shook off the feeling and grinned at his three students, who for the third time that day beached someone else's catch and staggered- or, in the case of Sasuke alone, swaggered- up the shore. The dark-haired boy snatched his shirt from the ground and, shaking stray drops of water from his hair, pulled it over his head. Blatant disappointment at the boy getting reclothed showed on- practically screamed from- Sakura's face, while Naruto, his arms folded across his chest, looked pointedly away until his rival was entirely clothed, his bottom lip protruding and his eyes seemingly closed. Kakashi didn't need the Sharingan to tell that at least one eye was partially open, however, and the pupil swivelled to the edge to look over the blonde's shoulder. The sensei hid his smile, wondering vaguely if Naruto _knew_- or, at least, was willing to accept- that he was peeping. He doubted it.

Naruto turned only when Sasuke had put his shirt back on and was glaring at the road as if the road itself had hurt the dark boy the way he seemed to think everything had. Naruto's lip stuck out further. If he looked at everything the way Sasuke did, he would be called whiny and ungrateful, but when the Uchiha did it, it became "oh-my-god-so-cool" and "Christ-he's-so-morbid-isn't-that-fucking-hot?". "Aren't the workmen supposed to be here to get that?" he asked, his voice entirely toneless, gesturing vaguely towards the empty road.

Kakashi nodded slowly. "Yeah, they are," he replied, slowly. "I'm kind of surprised they aren't here yet. If they ran into some trouble- maybe I should go find them."

As amusing as the image, still preserved, of Naruto saving Sasuke from the monster had been, it was quickly replaced by a similar ideal of Naruto single-handedly fighting off a hoard of missing-nins to save poor, screaming fishermen while Sakura watched in blushing awe and Sasuke, beaten to a bleeding pulp by said missing-nins, scowled in acknowledged defeat. He could hear Hokage-sama's congratulations, now- "Naruto, I present you this plaque for being the hero of Konoha and the most amazing ninja that ever was, for your amazing and heroic defeat of seventy-three of the most powerful and evil of all the corrupted shinobi of Japan. Also, I officially make you the new Hokage of Konoha, because I'm an old fart and you're a million times more awesome..."

"Kakashi-sensei!" he cried, happily. Three pairs of eyes swivelled to stare at him. "Maybe one of us should go with you! Just to... you know... keep you company, and help out." He grinned happily up at Kakashi, fingers crossed that the Jounin would agree.

Sakura grinned happily. Yes! Finally, Naruto was getting out of the way and Kakashi was leaving her and Sasuke alone together! Okay, so maybe she was streaked with mud and tired and wet and maybe she didn't smell quite a good as she always wanted to for her and Sasuke's first kiss together, but she was a ninja and she was willing to rearrange her dreams. If this was her number one chance, she was going to take it, no matter what condition she was in!

Kakashi seemed to consider, then grinned brightly. "Well, it could be a long walk (I can't just reappear where ever they are when I don't know where they are!), and I don't really want to go all by myself..." His grin got larger and his single shown eye closed in innocent happiness. "Sakura, will you come with me?"

All three Genin jumped at the latter part. Sasuke groaned inwardly. Left alone with Naruto, the air-headed blonde who couldn't shut his mouth. For however long Kakashi and Sakura took. Sakura, not looking forward to losing her number one chance, broke in as soon as she had recovered from the sudden paralysis of the mental images she had been concocting, about what the next hour would entail.

"Why me, sensei? You could walk faster if you took Sasuke or Naruto (preferably Naruto, of course); they have more endurance than me." It was a weak protest, but it was the best she could do.

Kakashi, of course, knew she didn't want to come. He just wasn't going to change his mind. "I wanted company, Sakura, not a teammate for the relay races." He snorted. "I want someone to talk to that will actually occasionally answer, and not stupidly."

Sakura shot glances to either side but she had to concede that she was, indeed, the only one of the three that fit the criteria. Damn.

"Yes, sensei," she said, shooting a helpless look to Sasuke, who didn't seem to notice or care. He had resigned himself to time spent alone with the idiot, and had bonelessly reclined against the trunk of a tree, their mission's fruits already starting to excrete a slight fishy smell. Inner Sakura cursed, at both her bad luck and Sasuke's seeming indifference.

Naruto, for his part, sulked. If something interesting happened, _Sakura_ would get all the fun and all the glory. It wasn't fair! Of course, it was much better than Sasuke getting to go and becoming the hero- again, it should be added- but still. Sakura was the fastest learner, Sasuke was the strongest; why didn't _he_ get any opportunity to do something great?

Kakashi's beam disappeared back into his "commanding Genin" face, and he glowered at Sasuke and Naruto. "You two watch over this," he said, gesturing in the general direction the increasingly strong fish scent was coming from. "I don't think anyone would steal it-" he flashed a grin- "but I don't want animals or anything getting into it. We'd mess up the fishermen's business. Alright? We'll be right back, as soon as we can."

"Yes, sensei," Naruto said, grinning broadly despite his disappointment. _Next time. I can still prove that I'm a hero._

Sasuke nodded acknowledgment to Kakashi, then leaned back to rest his head against his makeshift backrest and closed his eyes against the sun.

Naruto waved to Sakura far past the point where she had turned her back onto him and walked away. Kakashi continued waving for longer but stopped way before the blonde. He only stopped when Sasuke snickered and then he half-sat, half-fell-on-his-ass onto the grass perhaps twenty feet from the dark-haired shinobi, his legs folded flat on the ground, and his shoulders slumped, leaning down onto his palms, pressed into the ground in the diamond made by the folds of his legs. He looked over the lake, watching the birds and thinking about fighting and glory and ramen noodles.

His thoughts, however, only occupied so much time before he began sensing the silence between himself and Sasuke turning from companionable, to awkward. He pouted again. Stupid Sasuke, always so stoic and silent, not even caring that Naruto wasn't looking at him or trying to start a conversation, not caring that Sakura was gone or whether or not the fishermen were in trouble. He repressed a sigh, and stared down at his hands, then at the lake, then, briefly, back at the shinobi behind him.

"We did good today, didn't we?" he asked at last, breaking the silence. Damn Sasuke, anyway. No matter who he was or how lone-wolf silent he chose to be, Naruto wasn't going to spend an hour alone with him, choking on the silence and the smell of fish.

Sasuke's mouth twitched in annoyance. Never mind that he had been waiting for the idiot to say something stupid and irrelevant- and, in this specific case, particularly subjective- to break the silence that had his damned thoughts going around in circles again. It was still so very infuriating, the demon-vessel's self-assurance. "Not really," he replied, coldly, the words shot like arrows to break down Naruto's walls of pride. The blonde almost winced.

"What do you mean?"

One dark eye slid open, surveying the world- the dark blue lake, the light blue sky, the middle hue of wide, pissed-off eyes. Yellow hair, yellow sun. The eye slid closed again. "We went fishing, Naruto. Nothing precisely notable in history books of the shinobi of Konoha." His shoulders rose and fell in a slight shrug. "I was _hoping_ for maybe something a little more challenging than that." He didn't have to pointedly blame Naruto. All three of them knew why they had gotten that specific mission. He simply fell back into his icy silence, and neither spoke for a long moment.

When Sasuke opened his eyes again Naruto was two feet away and facing him. It was startling, but the taller boy didn't show it; didn't jump or say anything or even narrow his eyes. He stared at the blonde levelly, neutrally, ignoring the slight crease over his eyebrows or the intent blue eyes studying him, trying to pick out some emotion on Sasuke's dark veneer.

Naruto spoke again, his tone somewhere between accusing and dumbfounded. "Sasuke, why did you become a ninja?" It wasn't curiosity that had prompted the query. Naruto knew the reason; at least, knew the text-book reason, the flat, cold, reasonless-reason, "I want to kill my brother." He didn't know... he didn't know anything, really. Why he was so intent on his own brother's death, why he would go through all the trouble to become a shinobi in order to do it, why he didn't view what they were doing the same way he and Sakura did. He didn't know why he wanted to know, or why _now_, but he did and there were no other, more pressing concerns to deal with at the moment. So why not ask for all the details?

But Sasuke was not really intent on telling the blonde all of that. Some of it, he didn't know, though he didn't admit that to himself. "You know why, you idiot," he snarled, waving the unspoken questions away from his mind like cobwebs. Where was Kakashi?

Naruto's eyes narrowed further. They really were the most intense shade of blue Sasuke had ever seen. "I... I don't understand you, Sasuke." He didn't seem finished, but he lapsed into silence anyway.

Sasuke glared at the blonde, pointedly not thinking about their time spent training, abandoning everything else to fight their way to more and more strength. "Of course you don't." Idiot.

Naruto's eyes narrowed. Someone had asked him to kill them, once- and he had been about to. But he hadn't actually dealt the last blow, and when Haku _had _died... God. Naruto had been glad, extremely so, that he hadn't been the one to do it. There had been so much _blood_....

But he couldn't tell that to Sasuke. How the hell could one phrase that to some stuck-up asshole who would probably call him a coward or mock him for being scared of a little blood? "It's a stupid reason, you know," he said, and Sasuke's eyes opened slightly to look at him with an expression Naruto didn't recognize. The blonde crossed his arms tightly over his chest, and his mouth set into the 'lecturing' angle he'd seen Kakashi use so often. "Don't you have anything... I dunno..."

"Noble?" Sasuke shook his head. "Honorable? Self-sacrificing? No, Naruto- I don't want to make the world a better place, I don't want to protect Konoha or anything else. I really don't care about all that."

Naruto's eyes narrowed further, finally just slits of blue in his face. "You're an asshole, Sasuke."

Sasuke snorted in response.

Naruto frowned. All he'd said was that they'd done a good job, and as always it had started an argument. He couldn't remember ever having a conversation with Sasuke that didn't end in at least one of them tearing the other to shreds. God, who had stuck a kunai up this guy's ass, anyway? He was pretty sure _he_ wasn't the one with the problem. No, it was all Sasuke's fault, acting like he had already been offered Hokage but had turned it down. Like he was the single greatest ninja of all time. Naruto glared at the lake and thought about sea monsters, feeling a slight tremble go up his spine. Sasuke hadn't been in the least scared of the idea of the monster. But Sasuke didn't really _act_ scared of anything. Naruto scowled deeper. Stupid Sasuke.

And now he was just going to pretend he owned the world? That he was the strongest god-damned ninja in the world and the rest of the shinobi could just lower their heads in defeat? That it was over, there was nothing left to save, and the only thing worthy of the mighty Uchiha was his own fucking ass?

"So, what?" the blonde asked when the silence had him building up his anger at the dark shinobi. "You'll kill your brother and then become a missing-nin, like Zabuza?" There was no reaction from Sasuke but a slight shifting of his shoulders that may be translated as a shrug. Naruto almost growled. He turned to face Sasuke again and leaned over him, eyes gleaming. "Answer me, goddammit!"

Sasuke's eyes opened, slowly, the very edges of his irises starting to stain red. Naruto, mouth forming a slight 'o', drew back, slightly, his arms falling to his side from where they had been braced against the tree. Sasuke laughed, just slightly, black hair falling over his eyes. The other shinobi looked quite shocked for a long moment; his eyes had gone a few shades grayer at the sight of the Sharingan. But once he heard the mocking tone of Sasuke's laugh he was scowling again, and opened his mouth to shout something rude.

"Do you want me to pretend?" Sasuke, half-laughing, cut him off. "Pretend to give a damn about whether the idiots and cowards like you live or die?"

"I-" Naruto didn't really know where to begin.

"You want," Sasuke continued, his tones almost venomous though still frigidly cold, "for me to be like all the rest of you, pretending to care about other people when really all I'm doing is saving my own ass, serving my own double-fucking-crossing purposes; you want me to obsess over my face in rock when I could be doing something worthwhile?" He still didn't sit up; Naruto's eyes flashed and he leaned further over the other boy, almost incoherent with anger at this callous and unfair description of his own goals.

"Sasuke you bastard, you don't think-"

"You want me to put my own goals on hold while I cater to some ancient asshole's every demand?" He was starting to lean forward, black eyes trapped in the blue. He couldn't look away; his own and Naruto's intensity kept him locked there, immobile. "While I pretend to want something greater than my own devices? While I pretend to give a fucking shit?"

"No, you asshole. I want you to..." Neither noticed that their voices had dropped to whispers, slowly descending in volume as their proximity to each other increased. Their faces were inches apart. They could hear each other breathing louder than themselves; feel breath meeting between them in a vortex of warm air. "I want you to do something that makes things better for someone but just your fucking ass." But the words didn't have the desired infliction. He seemed to have lost all capability to give weight to his own words. They barely came out as more than stressed breathing.

Sasuke's voice was devoid of all emotion when he spoke. Cold, empty, like words written out in perfect, featureless manuscript. Dead. And almost silent, the words hushed and whispered, completely uncharacteristic of the dark-haired shinobi. "What do you want me to do?" And then he leaned just a little more forward, a few more inches, the space between them slowly vanishing, and...

A sudden whirl of air caught Naruto's eye and he fell, quite literally, backwards, landing on his ass and falling splayed out on his back. Sasuke jerked back, his right shoulder hitting bruisingly hard against the trunk of the tree that had served as his backrest. The dark-haired boy gasped in air, eyes wide and slightly rolling, but by the time the air had cleared and Kakashi stood grinning happily the dark-haired boy had regained his composure, sitting relaxed against the tree. His mouth felt as though there were ants on it, crawling over it; fire ants that left a stinging, burning sensation behind. He couldn't wrap his mind around it. What had happened? His mind spun, but he ignored it, studying Kakashi, who seemed perplexed by the strange tension and Naruto's rather unusual position.

Naruto, for his part, had _not_ regained composure. Slowly he sat up, avoiding looking at the other boy- which suited Sasuke just fine- and looked from Kakashi to the road beyond the sensei. He didn't have enough of a mind for it to be spinning, but he had stomach enough and it was in knots. His heart hammered and he didn't know why. After a moment he realized his mouth was still slightly opened and he didn't understand why he had opened it in the first place.

And then he remembered, as if recollecting a dream, the barest hint of pressure on his mouth before he had fallen away and his heart stopped hammering so hard. In fact, for half a moment, it stopped beating altogether.

Had he _kissed_ Sasuke?

...Again?

_ end chapter two _


	3. Lessons in Anger Management

**Title**: Fireworks

**Author**: Ember

-

I never thought I'd walk away from you.

I did.

But it's a false sense of accomplishment.

Every time I quit

Anyone can see my every flaw.

It isn't hard.

Anyone can say they're above this all.

It takes my pain away.

-

Sakura frowned, her hand plastered to her forehead to shade her eyes from the sun. The fisherman's three wagons, pulled by vividly red trucks, were moving very slowly in her opinion, and her perch on the wooden side of the center wagon showed her little over the back of the foremost one. She had told them that the third haul wasn't enough to merit the three wagons, that they only needed one, but three was custom so all three came, even the one that had gotten stuck in the pothole and needed Sakura and Kakashi's assistance to get out.

"I'm ordered," the driver of Sakura's truck had said, "to make sure that three trucks leave, three trucks get to the lake, and three get back. It's the rules."

Sakura sighed and, wrapping her fingers around the narrow wooden beam she sat on leaned all the way back to look around the foremost wagon. She might have ridden in it, but it had just come in from the other side of the lake and it smelled _bad._ Around the wood-and-red-painted bulk, she could see the sparkle of the edge of the lake. With a soft sigh, she sat up again and traced a bit of the curving grain with her finger. She wished that she would hear footsteps, soon, familiar footsteps and running, and she would hear Sasuke's voice, yelling, "Hey, Sakura! I missed you; I had to put up with that dork Naruto for the past fifteen minutes! Kakashi said you did most of the work getting the fishermen out of their rut, great job!"

She couldn't repress another sigh. Like _that_ would ever happen.

"Sakura?" The voice wasn't Sasuke's, it belonged to one of the drivers, in the wagon in front of her. Taking in a deep breath and holding it, she stood on the wobbling narrow beam- sticking to it with Chakra was second nature to her by now- and ran to the front of the center wagon. She lightly jumped, grabbed the back of the front wagon, and pulled herself to stand on the side beam, struggling not to inhale with the knowledge of what the air would smell like. The driver stuck his shaggy head out the window and grinned up at her with missing teeth. "Those your friends? They look familiar."

Suddenly not caring _what_ the air smelled like or how muddy and probably smelly _she_ was or anything but the possibility that Sasuke was coming to find her, Sakura gasped, grinned, and danced along the bar to get to the left side of the truck. Two forms- one shorter, with bright blonde hair and gaudy orange clothing, the other taller with black hair and grayscale clothes- were walking about ten feet apart down the road, the shorter one, also the one lagging behind, glaring nails into the back of the taller. Sakura's smile grew and she jumped off the beam and landed neatly on the dirt road. "Kakashi must be waiting for you guys," she called up to the drivers. "Looks like we were let off early!"

"That we all had such luck," was the predictable response as the wagons continued pulling down the road. Sakura waved to the two boys, bounced once, then waved more. Naruto looked up, saw her, and visibly brightened.

Sasuke saluted with one hand and, aside from that cursory gesture, pretty much ignored her. The tiny candle of Sakura's hopes felt like it had just gone through a monsoon.

"Sakura!" Naruto yelled, oblivious to the pink-haired girl's mood, picking up his pace. Familiar footsteps sped into a run. "Hey, Sakura! I missed you! I had to put up with that dork Sasuke for fifteen minutes!"

Sakura winced. The gods were cruel.

-

Naruto sulked. Sakura had more-or-less ignored him the whole walk home, fawning over- guess who- Sasuke, who had, being the asshole he was, completely ignored her. Naruto didn't know whether he was more angry that Sakura liked the bastard or that Sasuke didn't care. The arrogant prick could at least acknowledge Sakura, and give her a _chance_, instead of dismissing her out of hand like the person Naruto wanted to like him more than anyone else wasn't worth a two-hour date.

And then go around... to... _Naruto_, for god's sake... like... like some sort of crazy _creep_. That's what Sasuke was, he was _creepy_, and whether or not what had happened (whatever _that_ was) was intentional, it was fully obvious that it was all Sasuke's fault, and Naruto, who felt he would not be entirely clean until he had scoured his mouth with water and soap and non-toxic tile-grout remover, could not help but stew in anger and resentment.

_Fuck him, anyway,_ Naruto thought, going quickly at that mental image from indignant to embarrassed and decisively _not_ pursuing _that_ thought train. It was well enough to have to think about _kissing_ the bastard (twice!) without having anything else on his mind. Especially not anything that _gross._ _He's such a... _He paused, not being able to think of a proper insult that didn't lead back to the avoided thoughts and refusing to go _there_ again. This was frustrating. God dammit, he was lurking behind and thinking about this shit and that meant that Sasuke-bastard was winning again, though he didn't know quite how the two connected. He wished he could see Sasuke's face up ahead of him because he felt certain that the irises around the black-haired shinobi's pupils would be blood-red, that the other boy was putting these thoughts in his head and then reading them and laughing to himself.

Naruto's blood ran cold. _Was Sasuke reading his thoughts?_ He thought back to what he knew of the Sharingan but, sadly, he hadn't really understood most of what the technique entailed. Did they say that the technique _did_ or _didn't_ read other people's minds? He couldn't remember.

_It would be just like that asshole to be sitting in my head and listening to my thoughts and laughing his ass off,_ Naruto grumbled inside his mind, blue eyes narrowing to slits. _Arrogant bastard. I bet he does it all the time, when no one's watching._ There was an uncomfortable thought if Naruto had ever thought one before. He wasn't sure he liked that but on the other hand, it _did_ open certain possibilities... maybe if he asked really nicely, Sasuke would look into Sakura's mind and tell Naruto that she really did secretly like him, as he knew she really did.

_Yeah. And maybe for my next birthday, the entire population of Konoha will throw a giant party for me and buy me lots of presents._ The impossibility of both prospects left him feeling unexpectedly sad, which made him more angry at Sasuke for acerbically and non-literally bringing it up.

Ahead of him, Sasuke's eyes were still dark and limited and his thoughts were entirely his own. They were also carefully directed in every direction except behind him, where ten paces away a blonde shinobi walked in complete and utter confusion, and touched upon everything but a few minutes of memory during which things happened that he refused to relive and refused to admit to.

Unfortunately for Sasuke, _every direction but behind_ included to his left, where Sakura- once more too close, but he never let it bother him- was chattering on endlessly without pausing to let him try and take in what she was saying or get an edge in sideways or even to let the pink-haired shinobi breathe. Sasuke had decided long ago that all girls _had_ to possess a third lung, if not more. Sakura, he knew, needed at least four- one to complain about life as a Genin, one to compliment Sasuke, one to bash Ino, and one to breathe, all in a jumbled, simultaneous maelstrom of prose. Every once in a while, one of these lungs took a break from their current employment and complained about Naruto, desperately trying to pry into Sasuke's favor by supporting him in their rivalry.

_Every direction but behind._

He forced his thoughts away from his entire team- there were too many Naruto-themed tripwires, there- and ahead, to what he would do when he got home. First, he would train, then probably read something, though he didn't have many interests and he'd pretty much wiped out the selection of books on training and shinobi already, then maybe make something to eat and see if there was anything else he needed to do before training some more and going to bed. He hated housework but living in his own filth made him almost sick and there was no one else to do it. He didn't know how he would take living with someone else but he did have memories of living with his family before they had been, all but one, wiped out, and he guessed it would be better than what he had now. Which reminded him of a conversation he'd had with Sakura a long time ago- it seemed long ago, at least; it wasn't really, he guessed- and that reminded him of-

_Every direction but behind._

Sasuke didn't usually think far into the future- it was pointless, really, unless the future was solid, which it really never was- but he found himself, turning away from the present, reaching for _something_ to think about and he decided on the next mission. He didn't know what it was going to be but surely their success in the Zabuza/Haku incident had to credit them for something challenging. He'd take a C-level, could probably do a B-level if no one got in his way, which was unlikely on the same team as...

...Sakura.

_Every direction but behind._

But it was impossible. Every fucking line seemed to end in some way more-or-less related to the blonde, every nerve ending touched the fox-demon, every thought seemed to be tainted by him. Not thinking about him was like trying to find dry ground right after a storm. Thinking about him was delving further into himself than Sasuke wanted to go. But _why_? God _dammit!_ What the fuck was happening to him?

-

By the time they reached the village of Konoha from the outskirts and had drawn near the lines of restaurants and gaming halls that ringed the houses of the three members of Team 7, Team 10 had finished whatever they were doing and the six shinobi happened to meet in the middle.

Sakura was fully aware that Sasuke was not listening to her. She still talked, hoping to say something that would catch his attention, but he was wearing a really intense look on his face and she was perfectly aware that it was a lost cause. She was beginning to go beyond frustration with this. In fact, she had just about thrown in the towel for that day when a familiar voice shrilled out Sasuke's name and Sakura winced away from Ino's charging form. Her long hair in its whiplike ponytail fell along the curve of her shoulder as she clung happily to Sasuke, flaunting her complete and total lack of restraint.

Sasuke, for his part, gave no indication that a shrieking girl had just crashed into him with the force and velocity of a earth-bound comet except for the fact that he had stopped walking. Sakura glanced back at Naruto, wondering why he hadn't taken the opportunity, with Sasuke distracted, to run up and talk to her, but he was staring at Ino and her catch with an imperceptible expression, swiftly wiped clean of his face.

Weird.

But she had no time for Naruto and he was always acting weird, anyway. She applied herself to the problem at hand, gripping Ino's arm and, fuming with anger, pulling her from Sasuke with all the strength she could muster, while Shikamaru and Chouji walked up at a far more sedate pace than that taken by their teammate.

"Naruto," Shikamaru greeted him, holding up one hand in a wave-like salute. The idiot was too lazy to actually move his hand. "Enjoying the sights?" He seemed to take a form of amusement from ignoring the vicious struggle to his right as he sidled up next to the mound of Sasuke and Sasuke fangirl. Chouji, for his part, stared at the three with an expression of mingled exasperation and horror, while meanwhile stuffing three small donuts into his mouth- doubtlessly, the first of his many dinners.

"Get off Sasuke-kun, Ino-pig!"

"Isn't that cute, Sasuke-kun? She's jeal- ow!"

"..."

Naruto held back a number of replies he could have made and glared at the two currently-sane members of Team 10. "Actually," he said, moving past them, "I'm going home."

Shikamaru blinked. That wasn't a very Naruto-ish reply. He shrugged, moving out of the blonde's way as he quietly walked past. He didn't ever remember encountering Naruto in a situation where the blonde had ever just... quietly walked away. Or a situation where he'd said a total of four words. But he as a general rule avoided encounters with Naruto altogether- not for the reason most people did, but because he was usually indisposed to sit around and listen to the blonde talk about nothing in a drone of idiocy- so maybe it wasn't all that odd. Maybe _kyuubi_ got PMS. How would he know? Why should he _care_?

"Good _lord_ Naruto, what have you been doing?" The voice, muffled slightly by Kiba's arm drawn over his mouth and nose, was enough to herald the approach of Team 8 (in this situation, the last thing Naruto wanted). The trio was led by Akamaru, in all of his glory, and followed by Inuzuka Kiba, cradling his too-sensitive nose and glaring at the lake water-soaked , mud-slathered, and fish-stained three, Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura. To his left and slightly behind, looking, fixated, at the ground at Naruto's feet, came Hyuga Hinata. Naruto shifted slightly, uncomfortably, at the sight of her; not that he didn't like Hinata, but the way her eyes always drifted from one side of him, to the ground in front of him, to the other side, made him always check to make sure he was wearing clothing and she wasn't avoiding looking at _him_ for the sake of modesty. A few strides behind both of them came the Team 8 Sasuke-replacement, Aburame Shino, but Naruto could care less at his presence; Shino being there was always rather like Shino not being there, for all he said and all he did.

Sometimes there were more bugs around when Shino was there. But that could be ignored.

"We had a mission," Naruto replied, starting to move past Kiba; then, because he couldn't resist, "A level _C_ mission."

Kiba frowned. "So? We've had tons of level C missions, you dolt; Kurenai says she might nominate us for the Chuuin exam in a couple months..."

"When was your last A-ranked mission?"

"Naruto, you have to stop bragging about that! It was a mistake!"

"We completed it, didn't we?"

Shikamaru broke in, there; Naruto was acting a little more like himself and Shikamaru generally couldn't stand Naruto, or his stupid way of blowing things out of proportion when it fed his ego. "Only because your sensei was there to save your asses," he replied, lazily leaning against the wall of the low-budget restaurant they were near. Chouji had ducked inside to pick up his second dinner, Sakura had managed to get Ino detached physically from Sasuke and was fighting to get between one and the other, and Hinata had inched slightly closer to the three arguing shinobi, gaze still locked onto the ground.

"Kakashi would have died if-"

"Shut up, Naruto." Sasuke, who hadn't spoken to him at all since Kakashi had re-appeared back by the lake, walked between Kiba and Naruto as if daring them to include him in their argument.

Naruto ground his teeth, frustrated. If Sasuke would stand up for their Team he might be able to beat Kiba and even Shikamaru in an argument but the black-haired shinobi constantly treated all the other Genin like none of them were worth his time, their insults weren't worth comebacks and their empty bragging weren't worth his more solid replies. As someone who could both use the other Genin's support and someone _fucking tired of being talked down to_, Naruto was very quickly getting fed up with Sasuke's constant, "I'm better than you, darker than you, and cooler than you, so you can shut your mouth, swallow your pride and enjoy me violating your personal space" aura. "For fuck's sake, Sasuke, who stuck a stick up your ass?"

The black-haired shinobi, who had spent pretty much every step of their walk trying to shrug off half-memories of his mouth pressing lightly against Naruto's, their faces close enough that he could almost feel the air disturbed by blonde eyelashes flickering, the back of his skull pressed against bark, the mingled taste of _kyuubi_ and ramen that filled his mouth and his lungs with every intake of breath, felt everything crash back into his mind with that one too-descriptive statement. Things rushed into him; a certain unstable mix of emotions that threatened to throw off his grounding and send him hurtling through the air.

In people like Sasuke, unstable emotions could only evolve in one direction. Teeth grinding in a flare of sudden anger at the closest semi-reasonable outlet, he whirled around and connected his fist with the side of Naruto's face.

There was a moment of quiet surprise at the sudden _reaction_ from the stone-statue Sasuke before Naruto threw himself, growling anger, at his teammate.

Ino and Sakura, having temporarily reached a consensual hiatus in their war lunged for Naruto, trying to hold him back, but he ducked and leapt backward at the last moment before they would have caught him and heaved a kunai at Sasuke. The dart spiraled through the air, missing the dark Genin by an inch as he leapt up and left and, almost hovering in the air, stared right at the blonde, eyes suddenly flashing red. Naruto felt his blood run cold but tore forward, leaning backward again at the last second and whipping his foot around to catch the other boy in his stomach.

Sasuke saw the move and dodged backward, pulling out a shruiken and hurling it at Naruto's exposed side. He rolled over and managed to avoid it, but they were in close combat, now, and the second star grazed his arm. He'd taken much, much worse hits but it still stung like hell and he felt his own unreasonable anger surge to fore as he searched his outfit's hidey-holes for weapons. He felt his fingers close around something he knew had enough firepower for this battle and he pulled it out, held tightly in his right hand.

Then he saw Sasuke forming a familiar seal with his left hand, bringing the index and middle fingers to his mouth and taking in a breath. The blonde hesitated, staring, wondering if Sasuke actually planned on incinerating him right here, in front of Sakura and Ino and Kiba and Hinata.

Then the black-haired shinobi froze, rigid, in his tracks. His expression didn't change but his demeanor did, the anger taking on a new dimension.

Ten feet away and connected by a black strip along the road, Shikamaru slowly lowered his left hand and straightened. Without a choice, Sasuke did the same.

"Hmm. Good thing the angle was right," Shikamaru and Sasuke said in unison. "Didn't have time to make plans."

Naruto didn't know what to do until arms wrapped roughly around him and the choice was taken away by the bigger and heavier Kiba. Broader hands then his pulled his right fingers apart and slid his weapon from his grip. "An exploding kunai," the dog-nin said speculatively, glaring at the kanji tag hanging from the hilt. "Ah, the remarkable restraint of Team 7."

"Shut the fuck up," Naruto growled. Kiba, judging him calm enough to speak in coherent sentences, at least, let him go slowly; the blonde fought from the grip the second he could move and stormed a few feet away from his fellow Genin. Less slowly- Shikamaru had no intention of being reduced to charred Shikabobs in the near future- the shadow-nin stepped away from Sasuke and let his shadow retract from the other's.

Sasuke had no need for parting blows. Glaring at Naruto's back- the blonde was turned away from even Sakura, glaring back at where they'd come from- he turned and walked away. Didn't _storm_ away, didn't _stomp_ away, just walked. As if he hadn't been exploited, kissed, walked home, harassed, insulted, provoked, fought, and physically restrained on this lovely spring day.

"Sasuke!" Sakura started to run after him, but stopped when he looked back over his shoulder and eyes with all the warmth and love of liquid nitrogen landed on her. Ino needed help in stopping- help that Shikamaru was willing to give, his hand closing over her arm as she ran past him- but Sakura turned and came back on her own.

Naruto had already broken off and started walking in the opposite direction that Sasuke had gone off in. It made for a longer walk home but he wouldn't have to be near that insufferable creep for the next fifteen minutes and that made all the difference.

"Naru- Naruto..." But Hinata took one look at Sasuke, and another at Naruto, and re-evaluated her priorities. She didn't want Naruto mad at her. So she hung back, like Sakura and Ino had done. They wanted to be left alone. She could respect that.

Kiba nursed a bruise Naruto had left with his thrashing and frowned. "What the fuck was that all about?" he asked, bitterly.

Shino shrugged, silently; he hadn't moved except to inch sideways a little so that he wouldn't get hit by the worse effects of the fight's ninjutsu. Chouji, having wandered out of the restaurant with a slight smile and a container of fries, looked in one direction after Sasuke, the opposite after Naruto, and stuffed two fries in his mouth at once, speculatively.

Shikamaru's grin was distinctly odd and Ino clearly picked up on it. The glare she leveled at her teammate was nothing short of poisonous. "They're Naruto and Sasuke," she said, her harsh tone softening audibly on Sasuke's name. "They're always fighting."

Shikamaru shrugged minimalistically. "He overreacted," he said, simply, the "he" in question indicated with a nod at the shrinking back of the black-haired Genin.

"They both did," Kiba replied, gesturing with the kunai he'd lifted from Naruto.

Sakura shook off her unease and shrugged. "I have to be getting home," she said, turning and starting to walk, slowly, in the direction Sasuke had taken off in. With his back retreating quickly down the road, she wasn't in much danger of ticking him off and it was the fastest way home. "My parent's are getting worried, probably. They freaked out over Zabuza." Ignoring a snide comment from Ino and waving in general to all of them, she hurried down the street, trying not to think about the way Sasuke had looked at her, trying not to think about Naruto being flamed in the middle of the street until the singled ashes of what once had been tan skin and blonde hair and bright blue eyes fell as a charred lump to the dust, trying not to think about Sasuke exploding as a kunai sunk into him, fire licking out from blood and ash, red eyes fading to dark brown fading to gray, trying not to wonder why, having seen them walk a measured and continuous distance apart, lash out at each other and suddenly try and kill (at least to appearances) each other, she felt left out of something she didn't understand.

_end chapter three_


	4. Mood Swings

Chapter Four

By: Ember

-

I can't remember the time or place

Or what you were wearing

It's unclear about how we met

All I know it was the best conversation that I've ever had

To this day I've never found someone

With eyes as wide as your's

I've been searching up and down this coast

Overlooking what I need the most

-

Naruto got up two hours to noon, slid out of bed, and groggily shifted through piles of clothing that had long accumulated on his floor (Clean clothes went more-or-less to the right of his bed, dirty piled on the left, and if it passed the smell-test, it worked for another day or two. Teenage boys have no use for closets). Orange was his usual color; orange jumped out at him from the floor even seen through sleep-blurred vision. He wrestled into his clothing, folded it around himself, yawned hugely, and stumbled downstairs. At this time he was sufficiently awake so that pouring a small river of milk onto a bowl of dry cereal was a simple enough task and accomplished without incident. He devoured this breakfast, threw the dirty dishes with the others in the sink (the pile was getting somewhat precarious, he would have to actually wash some of those soon) and hurried upstairs to brush his teeth, wrestle his hair with a fine-toothed comb, and put on his head protector. For the first week or so, he'd slept in it, but that had left ugly red marks on his face where the edges had set in and imprinted the skin so he had simply gotten into habit of hanging it on the headboard when he went to bed. Now he picked it up and slid it over the his head, so that the steel glittered in the light streaming from his bedroom window.

Then he grinned at the blue sky glinting in the edge of the glass and, smiling in his happy-go-lucky Naruto way, deemed himself ready for another day.

Whoever said "Tomorrow is another day" knew Naruto. He recovered remarkably fast. Case in point, he didn't actually _think_ about the day before until he was halfway to the place where Team 7 would wait for Kakashi. His paused and frowned, arms crossing over his chest; why did Sasuke always have to ruin everything for him every day? He always looked _forward_ to meeting with Kakashi (and Sakura!) but now he wanted to go back home and go to bed, to bury under the covers so that he couldn't see the sunlight anymore and pretend he wasn't in Konoha and didn't have to come back ever again. He didn't know exactly what he felt, but embarrassed and guilty pretty much summed it up- embarrassed at what happened between him and Sasuke (ew! Thinking about it like that made it sound like it had been intentional!) and guilty thinking about how the fight had almost ended, if Sasuke hadn't decided to burn him to ash at the same time Naruto had decided to throw the exploding kunai.

And that got him started on angry again, which completed the cycle of the day before to pretty good accuracy. Why should _he_ feel guilty? Sasuke had started the fight, and there was _no way_ Naruto was going to let the black-haired bastard push him around thinking he was so much better, and Sasuke had been perfectly willing to end it the same way Naruto had been planning on ending it.

Hmm. Thinking about it, he owed Shikamaru a thank-you card if nothing else. But that was for later.

The problem was, even while he was busy getting angry and frustrated and ready to prove himself infinitely better than Sasuke- maybe if a sea monster _did_ decide to eat the arrogant prick, Naruto wouldn't bother to save him, would wait until he was eaten and thoroughly digested before fighting back- he still _did_ feel guilty. And that frustrated him more. He crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes and finished the walk silently cursing the asshole and imagining every footfall crushing that arrogant, too-quiet, broody-dark face. Seeing that Sasuke, as always, was early and leaning against the wall of the store they were waiting for Kakashi in front of didn't improve Naruto's mood. Sakura wasn't even there yet, which was weird because she was usually right on Sasuke's heels, timing her entrance perfectly to get some time alone with the black-haired shinobi.

His mind ran through a list of smart-ass things to say to Sasuke but with uncharacteristic wisdom he kept his mouth shut, glowering at the other boy as he perched on the post of the fence guarding a drop-off perhaps of ten feet to a cluster of bushes below. The stone Hokages, still with faint red stripes running down their faces, looked over Naruto's shoulder to glare humorlessly at Sasuke.

Naruto had always wondered about the expressions on the Hokage's faces. What was the carving supposed to celebrate, that the Four suffered from chronic crotch-rot and couldn't be caught with a smile on their faces? _When I go up there,_ he thought, decisively, no _if_ about it, _Hell knows I won't be scowling down at everyone. I won't let them carve my face into a mountain looking like my fucking dog's died. That's why I'd be the best; I can at least be happy every once in a while._

_Unlike _certain_ people. Sasuke's carving would be identical to his real fucking face, might as well be stone anyway. Not like he'd ever be able to be Hokage, not a fucking chance; he's no where near good enough and no one needs a Hokage that doesn't talk._

He didn't know that from Sasuke's angle, his face was perched exactly to the left of the stripe of Mt. Hokage, and that his expression was as serious and faintly arrogant as the others'. His skin was brownish and if one ignored the hair and the eyes and focused on the contour, he looked like a lighter extension of the carving.

_Without as much brainpower as the rocks, however,_ the darker shinobi thought bitterly. Thinking about Naruto as Hokage was giving him too much credit, like complimenting the idiot even if the blonde couldn't hear him.

A few blocks down the road, Sakura nearly broke and ran, but she kept herself under tight control and, hands shoved into her pockets to keep from fiddling with her buttons, settled for walking quickly. She didn't want to look too anxious to meet Sasuke but she also didn't want Naruto to show up and take away their only time together. After everything that had happened yesterday- the fight, the... stuff, that she didn't quite understand but wasn't obtuse enough to miss- her sympathy would undoubtably be better-received and she would get pity-points with Sasuke, especially if she supported him and bashed Naruto like she always did when their rivalry got fierce enough.

She hadn't yet caught sight of Sasuke when she saw the orange blaze that was Naruto. Damn. _Why_ had she slept late this morning? She hoped, ferverently, that Kakashi wasn't rubbing off on her; that would be the final straw, honestly. She had to get closer before she saw Sasuke, as he had, in truly cool tradition, gotten into the habit of standing unconsciously in shadow (he was currently in the shadow of the store he was leaning against) and in black clothing with black hair even the white pants didn't quite get him to stand out. Not like Naruto in full sunlight.

She was pretty close before she realized something was weird.

She was twenty feet away before she realized something was _wrong_.

Nothing, no challenge or argument or anything had emerged from either throat while she had been walking up. Neither boy had moved, really, except for shifting or blinking or rolling their eyes skyward in response to what had to be their thoughts since it wouldn't rightly be a response to something said. While she loved to think that they were fighting over her she didn't pretend that her presence was detrimental to their rivalry and unending verbal sparring and the silence was overwhelming.

And, there was the fact that they were _staring_ at each other. Really staring, like their entire argument was telepathic and they were maintaining some sort of sci-fi mental connection. Creepy as all hell. She could feel tension like a thunderstorm gathering around the three of them, then realized that she, once again, wasn't in any way a part of 'them' and amended the thought. Tension around the _two_ of them.

She lifted her hand to her mouth, pressed the heel of it against her lips, curled her fingers delicately, and, quietly, coughed.

She felt the whiplash of the cut tension slide across her skin as Naruto and Sasuke twisted as one to glare, the former in surprise and the other in cold apathy, at _her_.

The glares were gone in another second as if they had never been and Naruto had slid from the beam to run towards her, grinning. Sasuke turned back towards Mt. Hokage as if it was what he was looking at all along and grunting an inarticulate greeting towards her.

"Sakura! You're here!" Naruto exclaimed, as if Mt. Hokage had been what Sasuke had been staring at all along.

Sakura wished she knew what was going on.

-

Kakashi was even later than usual. Naruto and Sakura whirled on him as soon as he appeared but he held his hand up for silence and they fell to quiet glaring. Sasuke, the white-haired Jounin was pretty sure, had blinked when he had first appeared. Aside from that, there was pretty much no reaction. After it was obvious that Sakura and Naruto weren't going to start screaming, he stood up straight and walked slowly to stand behind and to the right of his pink-haired admirer, as far as he could get from Naruto and still be in Kakashi's range of one-eyed sight. Interesting. So was the way dark eyes grazed the blonde, barely, as if ashamed to look at him but constantly reassuring himself of something. So was the way Naruto glared more-or-less covertly at Sasuke from the corner of his narrowed eye. So were the rumors running wild about the way the two had gone for each other's throats, the more wild on one side saying that one or the other of the two Genin had killed the other and on the opposite end of the spectrum, the one far less populated for it's lack of appeal with most female members of Konoha and it's total repellence against the male, that they were covering something (rather scandalous) up with the fighting, something that rumor painted with quite a bit of detail when that particular rumor was painted at all. The corner of Kakashi's mouth twitched upward. He didn't know why he even bothered to use the Sharingan, he had used it so much he was getting good at seeing detail and subtleties without it.

"We don't have a mission, today," he announced, smiling brightly. The effects any idiot could have seen, with or without Sharingan. Naruto groaned, Sakura frowned, and even Sasuke's demeanor slipped more onto the 'unhappy' side of emotionless. "So we'll just be training. You can't complete good missions without knowing more than what you guys know, especially you, Naruto, so keep your tongue in your mouth. We're going to be working on basic and intermediate seals, which, obviously, you'll have to know before you can master any of the bigger skills. I suppose we'll go to the edge of town, there're too many people here, and Naruto and Sasuke, by the way, if I ever hear about you two using your ninjutsu for serious fighting against each other ever again, you will no longer be under my tutorage." The smile was gone between one word and the next and he was glaring at the surprised-looking Genin, even Sasuke having slipped enough to be showing some shock. "According to Kurenai, both of you were maybe three seconds from doing serious damage to one another. There is no condition, barring nothing, that would excuse or justify that behavior."

"Sensei..." Naruto didn't know what he had planned on saying; not that Sasuke had started it, because that would be whining, and not telling Kakashi why what had happened had happened, because _he_ didn't know that, but it didn't really matter what he had intended to say.

"You had to be _restrained_ to keep from really hurting Sasuke," Kakashi interrupted, coldly, ignoring Sasuke's sudden burning glare at the implication that the Uchiha would have been the loser in the end of the fight. "So did you, Sasuke. Did either of you stop to think what would happen if you succeeded? If you managed to kill the other person? Did you?" He waited for the words to sink in, then frowned deeper. It was like throwing sticks at mountains; the words didn't sink in, they bounced off without leaving a mark. Naruto looked like he was about to burst in with an excuse and Sasuke looked torn between anger and the uncaring expression of the scolded deaf. "Of course you didn't. You didn't _think._ Both of you have serious problems with thinking, which is really too bad because it's a very important trait for shinobi to have. Here, let me tell you what would have happened. The other person would have _died_. You would have gone on to the next mission and they wouldn't have been there. You would have gone home and they wouldn't have been there. You would have gone through life and they wouldn't. I don't know what the hell is wrong with you two that you would actually want that, that you would _want_ for your teammate to be gone forever, but whatever it is, you better get over it fast." He looked over the faces of his three students and suppressed a sigh. Wonderful. Naruto was indignant, Sasuke didn't care, and he'd managed to scare the hell out of Sakura. He decided to cut his speech short. "This is a warning: if anything like that _ever_ happens again, neither of you will be Genin. Neither of you will be under my teaching, and neither of you will ever be shinobi ever again. I sincerely hope this is understood, because you will not get another warning."

At least that got some response. Sasuke's eyebrows drew together in resentment, and Naruto's eyes grew in horror, but Kakashi had really hoped to strike a chord without having to stoop to threats. He turned around, started forward, and called over his shoulder to his staring pupils. It was going to be a long afternoon.

-

It had been...

Sasuke sighed and in another heartbeat a shruiken was gone from his belt and buried into his stuffed target.

...a long afternoon.

He, of course, had already known most of what Kakashi had spent the day teaching him, Sakura, as always, had learned fast, and Naruto was probably in his living room right that second trying to get them right. After a while, Kakashi had judged them good enough- he'd even gone over the movements with Sasuke, who had been taught more the essence of the attacks than the strict formation of the hand seals that Kakashi insisted on- and, about half an hour yet before sunset, had let them go home. His comments on the day had been rather skin-and-bone, in comparison to the praise or criticism he usually gave; just telling them to practice and vanishing in his usual whirlwind, leaving them to the more mundane roads.

Before the initial swaying of the target had slowed down, Sasuke had moved a hundred and eighty degrees around it and two kunai were buried in two places on the red fabric. Sasuke's mouth twitched. Getting the two into the target wasn't bad when you were a hundred and fifty feet away and it was moving away from you, but he had been aiming for the stripe around the middle and both had hit above the black midsection.

The dark shinobi pulled the weapons out of the target, releasing it to sway on its tether while he pocketed the shruiken and kunai. This wasn't doing shit for his experience as a shinobi; what was the likelihood any mission would entail chucking metal pointies at a still target? He needed something alive, something moving, something that would fight back. The worn carpet on the basement floor was coming apart and he watched the fibers break away from each other as he walked, eyes narrowing in frustration. Three times, twice during the infamous "Zabuza Incident" and once, only once, afterward, he had trained with Naruto, had sparred with him and practiced with him and even gave and took criticism, cleverly disguised as pointed jibes in their neverending rivalry.

He reached the far wall and made a quiet sound that was half snort and half resigned sigh. That wasn't likely to reoccur any time soon; the easygoing competition was gone, between one day to the next, one week to the next, to something a little more harsh and a little more... emotional. And Sasuke couldn't quite remove himself from it, no matter how hard he tried. Couldn't stop thinking about it. Even when he was in the process of vehemently denying its presence he _still_ thought in phallic innuendo. He had caught himself staring at the blonde more than once (struggling to get Kakashi's hand seals to mean something and succeeding several times in setting his hair on fire) and had only the seventh (eighth if you count the time Naruto'd started yelping and all three of them looked over at him) time did he admit that something was wrong.

...Why him?

Why _him_?

_Why_ him?

He couldn't even remember which "him" he was talking about anymore.

The shruiken hit the black line and dug into the fabric. The target seized back and forth.

He would prefer to pretend like nothing was happening to him, like he felt nothing for no one and no one would ever change that. But he was (pretty much) the last of the Uchiha line and he had a... not a _duty_, perhaps, that was a little melodramatic, but certainly a drive to protect his family's fading remnants of honor. That included killing his brother, becoming a shinobi and _not_...

...becoming...

..._infatuated_...

...with blonde idiots who ran unthinking into battle and believed in sea monsters.

The first kunai buried its point two or three inches into the target, the handle jutting from the black line in the middle.

He couldn't just pretend it wasn't there. He couldn't just tell himself everything was fine, couldn't lie to himself like that, not when everything was slipping out of his control. He had to train his thoughts, like he always had, train himself to ignore it, to not think about another mouth pressed clumsily against his or desperate attempts at heroism or the look in blue eyes when he felt himself "die"...

Not think about what it would be like if the blonde meant it, not an accident or a caught-in-the-moment type of thing but something real, another body pressed against his, hands under his shirt and arms coiled around his chest, the scent and taste that was purely Naruto lingering in his mouth and on his skin for hours afterward...

The second kunai missed the target entirely.

It had been a long afternoon. It promised to be a long, long spring.

_ end chapter four _


	5. Chocolate Syrup

Chapter Five

**By**: Ember

-

Did you notice I was afraid?

I thought I'd run out of things to say

Two more hours until today

Burns this away

And it starts all over again

The sky will never look the same again

Till you show me how it could be

The sky will never look the same again

Till you show me how it could be

-

Konoha was a huge town, when you thought about it; not like it was crowded or particularly rich but it sprawled over the hills at the foot of Mt. Hokage and climbed partway up the massive, carved cliffs. A smattering of buildings even perched on the Hokages' heads, dots of civilization against the rock, looking out over the expanse of rooftop and building.

Naruto didn't really blame anyone who moved up here. The air was clearer, it was cooler, it was cleaner. He gulped it down in gasps once he had left the less good-tasting air of the actual city behind until he started feeling a little light-headed, and then he had only leaned back and enjoyed the scent. Sakura was right, spring _did_ smell nice, like cherry blossoms in bloom and grass growing and... well, spring.

He came up here to think. It was easier, here, like he didn't have to prove anything to anyone or pretend like he didn't care what they thought or what they said. He was just... alone. Too much of it and he went insane, but after a couple of weeks of being down there, just another dot moving about in its day-to-day life, milling in the crowds of other dots, conversing and pretending and covering up, he began to want his own company again.

It was still a couple of hours until noon so he didn't have to meet Kakashi for a while. He might even be early, and see if he could meet Sakura before Sasuke got there, and they could talk and maybe she would give him a chance instead of chasing the god-damned bastard she seemed to be _obsessed_ with...

He didn't like staying up here for too long so after a while he got up and started heading for the road. If he walked right by the fence that had been built to keep people from tripping down the mountain, and looked straight down, he could see the last few markings of paint he had splattered onto the noble stone faces so long ago.

_None of you could ever do anything this horrible!_

The memory lit up his face and burned away even thoughts of Sakura chasing Sasuke. He had been right, of course. No one else could ever challenge his record, ever do _anything_ like he'd done, and he had earned the grudging respect of anyone who'd ever pulled a prank before in their lives, and the near hero-worship of everyone who'd wanted to but never had the balls. A lot of the people who Naruto knew couldn't even walk this close to the fence, couldn't look straight down like that, and could never, ever hang off a rope to deface the faces of their superiors.

_But I can! I'm incredible!_

Those had been his exact words and he wouldn't now change them for anything.

He stopped by the little candy store on the way down to buy rice-cakes, three palm-sized candies, and ate them on his way to where he was to meet Kakashi and Team 7. The old-ish lady, in her early sixties or late fifties or something like that, glared at him as he left, the sweet syrup on the rice pancake stretching from his mouth to the cake as he chewed that perfect first bite, but he wasn't really that bothered by it. The old ladies hated him more than anyone else hated him, less because of any demons (though they _had_ been there to watch _kyuubi_'s rampage and maybe had lost people they cared about, or knew, or when they died at least wished they had liked more, to him, for all Naruto knew) but more because he was a teenager with a deep knowledge of shinobi skills and a reputation for teenager-like activities, and that was precisely the type of people old ladies tended to hate. She looked like she had a hand on the counter and one around a broomstick just in case he decided to steal something, but despite the fact that she was a stuffy old bitch who hated him without even knowing him and wouldn't lend him money for buying candy with even though he came here at least once a week and thus was precisely the type of person Naruto tended to hate, he wouldn't stoop so low as to steal from the elderly.

_Or so low as to give the bitch the satisfaction,_ he thought, blue eyes narrowed grudgingly, refusing to admit that he was a little hurt by the whole thing. _She'd be fucking thrilled to be right, I bet, and I'll bet she's been disappointed that she could never got the excuse to chase me down._

_Bitch._

He still had an hour or so before he had to meet the others; he slowed down and enjoyed his lunch, savoring the chewy squares. He thought about saving the other two squares for Sakura and Sasuke but his stomach was growling and Sakura would just give her's to Sasuke-bastard, and the dark-haired shinobi hated sweet things, anyway. Not surprising. Sasuke hated pretty much everything.

That was another reason Naruto liked going on missions: Sakura didn't hate him, Kakashi _liked_ him, and if Sasuke hated him, hell, Sasuke hated everyone. Even if the rest of Konoha hated him at least he had three people who didn't or at least didn't have anything else expected out of them.

Not a lot, precisely, to hold him over, but it was something.

Kakashi had asked him the day before if he really wanted Sasuke dead. The words themselves hadn't been all that impacting, not as dramatic as the sensei doubtlessly wanted them to be, but thinking about them Naruto felt a shudder travel down his spine. He had almost killed Haku but he didn't think he could _ever_ actually kill someone, not really, not on purpose. Especially not someone he knew. Not even Sasuke.

He remembered holding a limp, "dead" body in his arms and remembered what it felt like to lose a friend, so much as Sasuke was, remembered the anger and the mourning that threatened to overwhelm him, remembered the way the Bad Chakra inside of him, the _kyuubi_'s power, had risen in response to his emotions as his hands had tightened over pale skin.

Remembered the quiet, warm brush of his mouth against the other shinobi's, the feeling of ants crawling over his lips as if the skin knew something daring and frighteningly different had happened before the rest of his mind had established itself. Maybe _especially_ not Sasuke.

Another, entirely different, shudder shot down him. _I don't like him like that!_ he told his own thoughts.

_I don't like him at all!_

Maybe he wouldn't be early. He didn't think he really wanted to see Sasuke again, at least not alone. _Why not?_ the annoying little voice inside of his head (not precisely like the _kyuubi_, the voices were different, but they had the same tone) asked probingly. _You don't _like_ him. You _know_ he doesn't like you. No one does._

It had a valid point. _He might_, he replied to it, surly, not because he really _wanted_ to be molested by Sasuke (urgh!) but because the world did not by definition hate Naruto.

_The world, no. Konoha, yes. That's life._

Why did the single logical portion of Naruto's brain have to be his subconscious?

He finished his rice-cake lunch, promised his still-growling stomach a bowl of ramen later (such promises always placated his stomach) and walked into the main part of Konoha. He didn't have anything else to do for the next half-hour, and he contemplated going to visit Sakura, but Sakura was completely insane over Sasuke and Naruto didn't really want to sit around and listen to the girl he really liked listing off the list of Sasuke's first words. That same thought crossed pretty much every girl off his list, including Ino, and really shortened the people Naruto could go see. He wasn't in the mood for a verbal sparring match, which crossed out Shikamaru and Kiba, and crossing out Shikamaru killed the option of visiting Chouji because where you found one you generally found the other. Shino creeped him out and he wasn't such a huge loser that he would go hang out with Iruka-sensei or Kakashi; they were his teachers and even if Iruka was the first person to ever accept or acknowledge him, he wasn't his age or even his generation. That left only one person who was guaranteed not to piss him off or scare him away.

Hinata was not at home. Naruto had to walk a ways before he found her, sitting quietly on a bench behind the school, staring into space between the twining branches of the cherry blossoms growing in their squared off patches of earth. He grinned, wondered if he could actually coax the weirdo into _talking_ today, because he really had to talk to _someone_ or explode, and waved to her. She didn't appear to notice. "Hinata!"

She looked up, white eyes going wide, and stammered out, "Na... Na... Naruto!"

The thing about Hinata, aside from her intense attention and way of staring at his feet or over his head, never at him and constantly making him feel like his fly was open, was that she made him feel like some sort of archangel that had landed in front of her. Every time she saw him she acted like she'd been told he was dead. Then again, with Kiba as a teammate, that wasn't impossible.

The weird smile she wore and the way she stared at the pavement at his feet made him immediately regret his decision to come talk to her. Maybe it wouldn't have been _so_ bad to listen to Sakura or Ino drivel on for twenty minutes about Sasuke's favorite flavor of ice cream...

On second thought, Hinata was still his best bet for sane conversation.

After a second the dark-haired girl seemed to come to her senses and moved a little over for Naruto to sit next to her on the bench. Then she proceeded to stare at the flowers in the tree while her pale face slowly turned the precise color of the petals. "So," she whispered, shyly, "N- nice weather we- we've been having, yeah?"

Naruto smiled, a little sympathetic; Hinata, he knew quite well, was really bad at starting conversation. The weather was her best topic. She liked clouds. "Really nice," he agreed, finally. "It really has been."

That was the next twenty minutes. They talked about the weather. They talked about training. They talked about teammates. Naruto talked about Sasuke. Hinata listened. She was really good at listening. Naruto didn't really hear her talk a lot, but Kiba told him she talked to the blonde when he wasn't around, talked conversationally to nothingness she called Naruto. (The canine-shinobi didn't mention it, but Naruto assumed she did so with everyone, not just him; that'd be kind of creepy).

He was still pretty relieved when the clock hands began nearing twelve and he had to go to meet Kakashi; he liked Hinata well enough but she got tiring really fast. "I have to go," he said, pointing to the clock so that she didn't think she'd chased him away. "I don't want to be late."

She nodded, then looked away, smiled, and replied, "I... guess I should go, too. Have to meet Kurenai at one.."

"Bye, Hinata."

"B- bye, Naruto."

She didn't leave, though. White eyes trailed the _kyuubi_ vessel, staring after him, lost in thought. She talked to Naruto as often as she could get up the nerve to and she had never heard him talk like this. He sounded out of it, as if he, like her, was off in his head, but then she'd made a comment about Kiba and he'd started talking about Team 7 and it had been like he'd woken up; suddenly he was talking like she _had_ to know about their last mission and there's-an-empty-spot-here and what a bastard Sasuke was and how the fight wasn't Naruto's fault but he'd been about to end it and there's-something-left-out-here-too and then how he'd seen Sasuke the next day and the bastard hadn't apologized and another-blank-spot-here and how they'd worked without talking and you didn't talk about one person this long because you hated them.

Hinata didn't talk and she didn't keep a thought train for too long and she preferred simple contemplation, but she was pretty far from blind and could connect the dots to solve for the empty spots in Naruto's dialogue. Then he'd bolted down the road like he had somewhere to be when Kakashi wouldn't show up for Team 7 for at least another twenty minutes. Hinata felt the weight of the only possible conclusion fall onto her shoulders like bags of cement.

The cherry blossoms smelled nice this time of year.

-

Sakura, Sasuke was dimly aware, was talking again. Of course, he was in the same spot waiting for Kakashi and the slightly-whining monotone was quite expected in the situation. There was comfort in familiarity and he could forget recent thoughts and emotions and some that had occurred all along but had been brought out by recent events and lose himself in oh-my-gawd what Ino did last week with her hair.

At least, he could for a while. The problem with trying to think in public places was that interruptions were commonplace even ignoring the stares that people, especially girls, his age would cast for lingering moments in his direction and the occasional giggling calls of "Sasuke!" Sakura, for her part, showed remarkable dignity in ignoring all of these yells, aside from a few girls who she chose to glower at with burning green eyes, hands folded behind her back. He had just gotten comfortable, beyond these stupid distractions and lost in serious shinobi contemplation when two things happened at once.

The first was a set of familiar footsteps running up, slowing as they drew near, and a familiar voice gasping for air. Inside, Sasuke winced, and shied away from his own thoughts; the voice dragged in air and shot it back out, raggedly. There was the soft sound of hands running over cloth and the dark-haired Genin could almost hear his teammate's heart hammering from where he stood, could almost feel the beat tattooed in the air. He opened his eyes and looked slightly past Naruto; the reality of the situation was a lot more bearable if greatly disappointing in comparison to the scenario his mind had concocted.

_His mouth parted, slightly, tongue flitting out to run down the line of Naruto's neck. The _kyuubi_ vessel tasted like... cinnamon. Who would have thought he would taste like cinnamon? Slightly-curled fingers were running down his sides, smoothing out the loose cloth of his shirt, running lower and lower so that unconscious shudders ran through him, uncontrolled. He noticed vaguely that he had lost control of his hands to pure impulse and their own range, down the inner thigh of Naruto's leg and slightly higher, along the bulge in the orange fabric he had the satisfaction of knowing _he_ had put there, were causing quiet gasps to escape from between slightly-pointed teeth. Sasuke leaned in and ran his tongue over parted lips, feeling the blonde's breath pulling him deeper into the kiss..._

_Urgh._

Something of the last bit of thought must of shown on his face, a flicker of disgust at his own gutter-mind or maybe just a flash of longing, because Naruto gave him an odd look and turned to Sakura. "What's his problem?"

_A quiet voice whispered, moaned his name into his lips..._

A flash of heat traveled through him and, terrified that he might actually _blush_ Sasuke pried his eyes from the blonde and stared, arms crossed over his chest, at the sky. The passive blue helped, a little, to calm him down, but it wasn't quite enough to chase off the heat or the mental image.

The second simultaneous event Sasuke took longer to notice. He wouldn't have noticed if Naruto hadn't glared at him, crossed his own arms over his own chest, and proceeded to completely ignore his black-haired teammate. Sakura turned to snap at him and Sasuke caught a glimpse of the white-haired man standing behind her.

"You're on time," he said, quietly. He hoped he wasn't blushing.

Kakashi seemed very amused. Sasuke felt like every thought was spelled out on his face, was very aware of the powers of the Sharingan, and understood for perhaps the first time why Kakashi had kept the skill a secret for so long, even to his students. _Would there ever have been a thought I would have felt safe _thinking_ around him if I'd always known about it?_

Then Naruto and Sakura noticed their sensei and turned to stare at him in disbelief. "Hey!" Naruto exclaimed, sounding quite amazed. "You're not late!"

"I overslept," Kakashi replied, cheerfully, then turned to lead his confused students down the road, talking over his shoulder as he went. "Today we're going to practice the seals I taught you yesterday, so I hope you practiced last night. I asked the technicians yesterday and they think they can get us something that's not just menial labor..." He waited but the response he'd expected didn't come. Without moving his head from the half-turned position, he flicked his eyes over the three Genin behind him and smirked quietly to himself. Sasuke was pretty much himself, staring at the ground, his thoughts veiled behind dark eyes. Naruto was glaring at the sky, arms folded behind his back, but he was so obviously _not_ looking at his teammate that if Kakashi could see his mind and one's brain had eyeballs he was certain Naruto's would be leaning out of the blonde's ears and staring overtly at the other boy, pressed forward, unblinking. Sakura looked unexpectedly sad, which might have been more due to the fact that Sasuke and Naruto were so out-of-character and she was entirely shut out.

Kakashi did so much love drama. It was the biggest reason he'd _taken_ this job, after all.

-

"You idiot." Sakura, impatient, tightened her hold around Naruto's gut, her fingers digging into flesh. The _kyuubi_ vessel squeaked, and shifted, almost falling from the coil of his teammate's arm. "What were you thinking? You always do this to yourself, don't you, and I'm left to drag you home..."

Naruto pouted and wriggled a little when Sakura's fingers bit again into his side. "That's not fair," he whimpered, and she almost dropped him onto the road. Sasuke, walking beside them, shook his head, slowly. "I was _trying_ to help you, unlike _some_ people..."

"You tried a little hard, Naruto, and like always ended up flat on your ass. I have to put you down." The pink-haired shinobi lowered her burden with more-or-less gentle care onto the road and collapsed cross-legged down beside him. Naruto struggled and managed to sit up; Sasuke contemplated keeping on the road and leaving them behind but Kakashi had demanded that both Sakura _and_ Sasuke get Naruto home, and he didn't trust Sakura to do the work herself. So effortlessly he folded down onto the road, making a skewed triangle with the other two.

Sakura looked from one to the other and repressed a sigh. Babysitting Konohamaru and a cluster of his younger, brattier relatives should have been B-ranked at the very least. There had been twelve of them, a large ring of their Jounin and Chuuin parents having gone on some sort of day-mission to hunt down a missing-nin or bandits or something like that (she wasn't clear on the details; Genin are rarely given the detailed daily journals of their superiors) and the whole gang of drooling, sticky, wailing, screaming, running, puking, fighting, biting, scratching, shrieking worms had been more than she could handle alone. Unfortunately, with Naruto exhausting himself trying to keep shadow-clones enough to keep tabs on all of them, and Sasuke watching from the branch of a tree and refusing to touch the revolting creatures, it _had_ been Sakura's responsibility to handle alone. She was torn between being annoyed at Sasuke and being pissed off at Naruto, but she couldn't be annoyed at Sasuke for too long so she took it all out on the blonde. Life wasn't fair. Tough.

If life had been _fair_, not only would the boys have helped, but Sakura could have used what she liked to call, when her parents made her babysit for younger cousins or the kids of their friends, 'restraining measures'.

"I did not end up flat on my ass," Naruto protested, lifting a hand in feeble resentment. "I kept an eye on Konohamaru and a few of the others..."

"Because they were laughing too hard to do anything else that would get me into trouble when your clones exploded and you collapsed!" The rose-haired girl laughed shortly then bit her lip at the look on Naruto's face. Great. She takes on the Future Genin of Konoha and then crushes Naruto's feelings trying to vent a little, and Sasuke's staring off into space like he's all alone and everything's different and weird and changed, somehow, and now to drag a whining blonde another two miles and shut him up in his house without passing out on the way. What a lovely day.

Naruto looked away and bit back his frustration. It hadn't been _fun_ to lose face in front of Konohamaru, who wasn't the top priority for People Naruto Wants to Impress but it was always nice to have his respect and admiration if he couldn't get anyone else's. Nor had it been fun to wipe himself out while Sasuke-bastard watched and smirked in his show-off-arrogant-asshole way. Nor had it been particularly fun to listen to Sakura-chan's bitching. Nor had it been a particularly fun or pleasant mission in any way. He didn't need to be yelled at like the whole damn thing was his fault. "I _tried_, though," he protested. Why wasn't Sakura pissed off at Sasuke? "And I kept them in line for a while! Not like some people, who sit around all day and do absolutely nothing!"

"No, you try and help and become more of a burden than- Sasuke?" Sakura looked over Naruto's shoulder and watched the blonde pivot to stare at the darker shinobi. Sasuke was keeled over himself and shaking, his shoulders trembling, hunched over the top of his head. Her voice shook with concern. She'd never seen Sasuke like this before. "Sasuke?"

It took a second before the other Genin responded; then his head shook, slowly, twice, and she heard a soft string of sound come from his huddled form- he was laughing. Sasuke was laughing madly, uncontrollably, in a complete and utter hysteria she'd never seen him in before. It was the kind of fit actual _people_ had, never Sasuke, and he was obviously trying desperately to quelch it but without success.

"What?" Naruto sounded half-concerned and half-amused. Like seeing his rival like that was almost amusing enough to get him started. He shifted in place, visibly torn between reaching out and trying to stabilize Sasuke and backing away and clearly without the energy to do either. "What is it?"

Sasuke only shook his head and kept laughing for another minute. How to explain this to his teammates? Everything was spiraling out of control. Everything was leaving their control. It was all tied into him deciding to fall for Naruto which was revolting but so deeply amusing in context because with the completion of the triangle they were suddenly entirely helpless. He swallowed twice and forced the laughter to subside long enough to choke out, his voice controlled but not as cold as normal (he couldn't keep it cold, not while he thought about it) "After the defeat of Zabuza and Haku and three or four tons of fish-" here he choked again and had to regain control- "afterwards, Team 7 is defeated by a gang of twelve-year-olds."

And he lost control again as the thought renewed. But what did it matter? There was no control anymore. They weren't _powerful_ twelve-year-olds, but just as they all decided to love each other they lost all teamwork and all former bonds of friendship vanished and they were left as floating forces that were individually completely defenseless because of their unequal feelings and together just as scrambled for the same reasons. Sasuke knew, now, why Kakashi had come early to get them started early on their mission and why both he and Sakura had been told to help Naruto. But it hadn't worked, and now they were sitting in the road whining and arguing and blaming and the heavy _irony_ was just too much for the moment.

He had expected the irony to be lost on his teammates, but to his surprise he saw Naruto's face grow clear and light with his brilliant Naruto-laugh, and heard a muffled giggle escape from behind Sakura's palm.

Then they both dissolved and joined him in the renewed hysteria.

It wasn't that funny and analysis rendered it to something not really funny at all but they laughed a couple of minutes; every time one of them would slow down the other two laughing would set him off again. Only when Sasuke had sobered and stayed sober did the other two slow down then stop, and Naruto, still grinning, fell backwards onto his back and folded his arms under his head. Sasuke almost unconsciously inched slightly closer to him, then leaned back onto his palms and leaned his head back. There was nothing up there but a couple new leaves and endless blue, not even clouds. Sakura, watching them, stayed where she was, chewing on her lower lip. She thought, maybe, she was beginning to understand.

Naruto smiled to himself, staring up at the sky, letting the last of the good cheer carry him over the next few moments. The tension that had remained ever-present since Haku was gone from the air for the moment and it left behind an almost comradery, as close to comfortable friendship as the Team had ever had. He was acutely aware of the warm feel of the sun rays on his face and the smell of spring that floated omnipresent in the air. It preserved the good feeling and he glanced over to his left to see Sasuke leaning backwards onto his palms beside him, looking into space. He was in shockingly calm contrast to his previous demeanor but he didn't seem entirely unaffected and the cold isolation seemed to be temporarily lifted. He was almost- _almost_- smiling.

_Stupid Sasuke. This is as cheerful as he gets. _Naruto frowned. Sasuke annoyed him. He'd let him and Sakura take the entire mission themselves but when something fun popped up he got all the glory. He refused to acknowledge Naruto and refused to accept Sakura. And sitting there, waiting for the last vestiges of laughter to drain from him, watching the first traces of good humor to grace Sasuke's face in all of his time as a Genin, Naruto wanted very badly to kiss him.

He tore his eyes off of Sasuke's face and glared forcefully at the sky, but the impulse still hammered in his stomach like a _kyuubi_ drum set. He'd never felt anything that strong before, at least not... Not since he'd tried to kill Haku, what seemed like a long time ago. Not since he'd saved Iruka, a long time before that. But there it was. He felt completely sobered and at the same time a little bit high of something entirely different. It was a cliché metaphor he'd heard a million times before, the whole 'high off love' thing, and not very good to begin with, but who knew it was so accurate...?

Sasuke, for the first time in who-the-hell-was-keeping-track-anyway, was sitting right beside the fucking blonde and was perfectly content to keep things the way they were, perfectly content to just sit there with him, feeling the last of the humor fading away and thinking about nothing in particular. He wasn't especially _happy_- when had been the last time he'd actually been _happy_- but he was content, and he wasn't thinking about any situations involving naked Naruto and a swimming pool of chocolate syrup, or the death of anyone particular, or anything really but the here-and-now and the spontaneous moment of closeness that Team 7 wouldn't even really remember tomorrow.

He avoided looking at the blonde right beside him but glanced further right towards Sakura, wondering at her silence.

She was gone.

Sasuke sat up and looked around, surprised, but the pink-haired shinobi had disappeared. _Where did she go?_

"Sakura?" Naruto apparently noticed it at the same time as Sasuke did and he clumsily pushed himself up, struggling to sit upright, and found himself a lot closer to Sasuke than he had thought he was. He inched backwards, trying not to breathe in and trying not to meet the other's eyes, fighting the simultaneous urge to press forward and the flush of heat that traveled from his stomach to (thankfully) his face.

Sasuke heard Naruto moving behind him and felt the sudden plume of breath on the back of his neck as Naruto inched back, and, turning slowly, realized just how close together they were. Well, of course they were. They had been inches apart while they had sat quietly and now that their heads were on the same level they were close enough that he could smell ramen on the blonde's breath, could feel the heat that emanated from him, could hear the rustle of movement as the _kyuubi_ bearer pulled his legs closer and pushed himself back, slightly, hesitantly.

Sasuke felt and tried to fight down a similar flash of heat but his did not travel _up_ward...

So much for feeling fucking content.

_Nakedswimminginchocolatesyrup..._

Naruto was blushing and avoiding his eyes and they were so close and Sakura was gone and they were so close and he smelled like a weird but strangely enticing blend of scents that could be nothing but _Naruto_ and they were _so close..._

Their first kiss had been a complete accident. Their second kiss was open for translation.

Their third kiss, for the record, was entirely intentional.

Sasuke buried his fingers into the blonde's hair, threading the soft tangles in his right hand, and tilted Naruto's head back, just short of forcefully, his left hand tracing up the line of the blonde's throat while he leaned in to press his mouth against the other's. His tongue ran along the limply-parted lips and flitted in and out of Naruto's slightly-open mouth, running lightly along the other Genin's tongue. Naruto's palms were pressed against his chest but they neither pushed him away nor actually responded to what he was doing; he couldn't force himself to shove Sasuke away but he couldn't kiss him back, couldn't think, couldn't process, couldn't react. His mind kept screaming to him that he didn't like Sasuke, not like that, _not at all_, but if that was true why was he letting the darker Genin open his mouth with his tongue and play tonsil-tennis with him?

_Because this isn't real._ Because he was dreaming, of course. Because if this was real he wouldn't be burning from the inside out, uncomfortably tight from the waist down, his whole body hammering with his own pulse. If this was real he wouldn't be breathless with the _need_ to kiss the bastard back, to feel familiar hands tracing down his sides and his legs, that slightly-forceful tongue moving down his neck... Because if this was real he wouldn't be enjoying it. Because if this was real then Sasuke wouldn't be kissing him in the first place. This only happened when he dreamed and even then it wasn't like this, it could never, ever be anything like this.

In real life, Sasuke was a distant friend on a good day, an intolerable bastard on a bad day, and an arrogant rival any other time. If this was- Naruto gasped against Sasuke's mouth as the dark-haired Genin ran the tip of his tongue down the roof of the blonde's mouth, an unbearably intense feeling- if this was real life then something was- something was...

Sasuke's left hand dropped down to run across Naruto's side and even through his jacket and shirt Naruto shivered at the contact. His own hands closed over the black fabric of the other boy's shirt and he finally reacted, crushing his lips against Sasuke's, his tongue running down the wet-velvet side of the other Genin's, his mouth working into Sasuke's.

If this was real life then something was working out after all.

He wanted... Hell. He didn't know _what_ he wanted anymore. (He would not, however, have said no to naked swimming in chocolate syrup at that particular moment.) He felt like he was burning alive and his world narrowed down to that one impossibly clear moment where his arms tightened around Sasuke, slowly twining around his chest, and they kissed each other in a wordless moment of spontaneous... honesty.

Then, at the same moment, they both realized _what_ exactly they were doing.

Naruto collapsed onto his back, and Sasuke drew back suddenly, quickly, his palms hitting dirt when he fell backwards to hold himself up with his arms.

Sasuke's mind experienced a single moment of insane dischord, every thought running in different directions, baseless, groundless, soaked through with sharply contrasting emotions that mixed into a gray-green ambivalence. Foremost were shock and disappointment, though had heat been an emotion that would have taken the prize because it soaked through every inch of his body, dripped from every pore, coalesced into beads of sweat that trailed slowly past his temple. He wanted to lie there until the world crumbled away. He wanted to go back in time and make _that_ particular moment never happen after all. He wanted it to happen again, wanted to kiss Naruto again and feel the blonde kissing him back, feel wide and just-less-than-clumsy hands running along his chest, wanted to pin him on the ground and fuck him until his eyes popped out of their sockets.

Or just jump off a cliff. Either way.

Naruto choked, gagging exaggeratedly. "What the fuck was that?" he asked, blue eyes narrowed at Sasuke. "I mean, fuck, I know all about animal magnetism but I didn't know even _you_ were driven to distraction by me, Sasuke..."

The black-haired Genin spat out the last of the Naruto-taste from his mouth, contriving to screw his face into a disgusted mask. "That, you idiot, was the perfect reason _not_ to do drugs." He dragged the collar of his shirt along his tongue, feeling a slight burning on the dried flesh. "Revolting."

There was a lot of blank space in their collaborative story (which was less of a story than a half-hearted and half-joking excuse, but what would one expect), and they were both pretending to hate it but neither believed themselves or the other Genin for a second. For the sake of their respective sanity, however, they both pretended to. "Sakura bailed on us," Naruto said, wondering, for a second, if their pink-haired teammate had done it on purpose. He tried to follow this thought train but it involved Sakura sensing emotions he was pretending didn't exist so he decided, rather than risk confusing himself, to drop it and ignore Sakura's absence.

Sasuke looked down at him for a second, then sighed and stood in one fluid motion. "Of _course_ she did," he replied, his voice a little more biting than he'd intended it to be. Sakura had left him alone with this bastard and forced him to drag the fucking blonde home on his own and all in all he supposed he could blame the entire incident on her.

Naruto rolled his eyes at the darker shinobi and struggled to get to his feet. After two failed attempts, Sasuke sighed, grabbed the blonde's elbow, and lifted him to his feet. Naruto grinned sheepishly, pulled his arm back, walking determinedly forward.

He had fallen twice when something long and brown landed at his feet. Naruto lifted the massive stick, fully as tall as he was, with arms that seemed to have lost every bit of their strength. _Fuck babysitting._ "What the hell is this?"

Sasuke passed him without so much as a nod. "That," he drawled over his shoulder, "is called a 'crutch.' After all this time of using me as one, I assume you know how to use it." Then he had strode ahead and vanished into the dusk.

Naruto ground the thicker end into the dirt and scowled. _Fuck you, Sasuke_. Leaning his weight on it, he hobbled forth a step and then swung the limb ahead of him again. This was going to take a while. _You arrogant little prick._

And, shoving away all other thoughts of thinking and all other plans for the night, he shuffled forward.

_ end chapter five _


	6. Abra Kadabra

Chapter Six

By Ember

-

And everything else is irrelevant

To the story so far

A coincidence that you look like her from afar

Is it true that you like to sleep alone?

Or is it what you just tell everyone?

-

Amazing how one's morning routine can seem so different two days in a row while in fact being completely the same. Every morning Sasuke woke up because the faint predawn light made the minuscule change that had him wide awake and moving before anyone else his age could even reach the climax of their dreams. This morning, it also happened to interrupt a rather questionable dream involving ballet rhinoceroses, epic horse-back duels between large, green-brown frogs and black-scaled snakes, and, of course, Naruto coming on to him from his position tied naked to the wall with large leather bands. The rhino-dance and jousting all occurred without incident, but just when the bondage was happening his eyes flew open and he sat up after a moment of disorientation.

He was hard, horny, and bitter, and his day was just getting started.

Second on his schedule was usually getting out his clothes for the day- an easy task; his monotone clothing was folded away in his drawers, waiting for him, boxers, shirts and shorts separated to keep him from having to flail around in the morning.

He piled the clothing beside the sink, on the marble surrounding it, and slid out of his nightshirt and the day before's boxers. They lay in a crumpled pile on the floor as he turned the faucet on and took care of his teeth and face, then turned on the shower and stepped in. The water, almost too hot, slid over his skin and down his spine, steam already clouding the world around him. Hot water always brought some strange level of clarity to his thoughts, the rain of water on marble drowning out the outer world and leaving him along with his mind.

Which made a bad day, worse.

His mind had been wiped perfectly clear of all thoughts that didn't have to do with soft lips crushed against his, a velvet tongue stroking the side of his mouth, half in his imagination and half painfully real. Arms wrapped around him. What had possessed the idiot to do that? They had been closer than they'd ever been before, pressed against each other, while the fox had turned his head, just slightly, changing the angle, making it more carnal, delving into his teammate's mouth.

_Shit. Shit shit shit._ Not a good thing to think about. The water seemed hotter, boiling, when it hit his skin, and fire that made the rain seem like ice boiled inside of him, rising through his chest, settling in his waist where it stretched out painfully, and he gasped at the feeling...

Slightly clumsy hands running down his chest, wrapping around him, sliding down his spine, an unexpectedly passionate kiss turned into something else entirely, the wet warmth of the _kyuubi_ vessel's tongue trailing down his neck...

Longer, more graceful, less passionate fingers curled around himself, his own ragged breathing loud in his ears.

..across his collarbone, the surprisingly soft lips closing over his chest, the tongue making little wet, warm circles around his nipple...

He nudged his shoulders under the faucet of the shower, eyes closed tightly at his own touch, pretending with the remnants of his imagination that it wasn't his own. A pretense that made him want to be sick even as he fucked himself to it.

...down his stomach, pausing above his groin, trailing down the little line between his crotch and leg...

He jacked off to his friend's face and his almost-real memories of the day before and watched with revulsion the end result spiraling down the drain. Had it not contrasted so severely to the Uchiha Way of Life, he might have broken down and cried right there, standing ankle-deep in shower-water and worse, leaning against the gray tile of the shower's inside. The hot water was starting to run out and he didn't even care. It took a moment before he had regained enough composure to get angry at the whole situation, but the anger came. He twisted the shower off so voraciously he almost removed the knobs then stepped out and slammed his fist into the bathroom wall.

"This is such _bullshit_," he snarled, knocking the towel rack out of the wall when he snatched the white fabric from its hold. He wrapped it around him, then slammed backwards into the wall and let his head fall with a thunk into the tiles. If there was a god, if there was anything at all to regulate the irregularities of life and make it all work out, then rejection wouldn't hurt this much.

It would all make so much more sense. You're rejected before anything can really happen out of a relationship, chances are fifty-fifty you're going to be rejected, but while you know it could happen and you know it might happen and you might, in some cases and this was damned enough one of them, know it'll _probably_ happen, why in hell should it actually hurt? If things worked out the way things should and you could shrug rejection off and keep walking then there wouldn't be risk in taking these fucking chances and that would be the better scenario than pretending and ducking and lying out of fucking fear.

But now Naruto knew what he felt and now Sasuke knew without hope of being able to shrug it off again and now everything was fucked up beyond hope of repair.

Of course, there were other things to consider- for starters, the fact, pure and simple, that Naruto had kissed Sasuke back. But the dark Genin was in no condition to start contemplating all the possible implications of _that_, if it meant anything at all. His hands clenched and he glared at his misty reflection in the fogged mirror, biting back a snarl at the bitter thoughts the sight called up- _Some shinobi. Protecting the honor of your gods-be-fucked Clan, now, by jacking off to some idiot's face and... fucking... letting... him... know..._ That was the worst shame of all of them. He hadn't been in control, then, he'd let his guard down for two seconds and _that_ had happened, and he'd ended up making out with the blonde imbecile and feeling unexpected tremors when the asshole had responded, and he'd been left fucking breathless.

_Fuck._

He brought the comb through his hair viciously, attacking the tangles the hot water had left in the black lengths. When it was wet it hung loose, in great dripping locks, down to his shoulder blades. When it dried he would go at it with the hair gel, until then it weighed wet down the back of his neck. When the locks had been smoothed and it was starting to dry, he pulled his clothes on; boxers, shorts, wide-collared shirt, then the wrappings around his arms and legs. He combed his hair into its spike then threw the towel back onto its fallen rack and slammed the bathroom door closed behind him, snatching his forehead-protector from the bedside table as he walked past his bedroom and trotted downstairs.

Gods take it all and shove it up their asses. He had a mission today.

_Fuck fuck fuck._ He was not in the mood to put up with Kakashi's smiling I-know-everything-ness, Sakura's clingy crushing, or Naruto's... however the fuck Naruto chose to act today. He wouldn't be able to stand any doses of Narutoness today but he thought he could stand it better than a change in the blonde's character, a wake-up call that _this had happened and everything's screwed up._

Fuck it. He was sick.

He bit his lip as he contemplated it and realized that course wouldn't work. Kakashi generally knew what dictated sick- in fact, after Naruto had taken a few unscheduled holidays and blamed them on ridiculously obscure diseases he probably made up, Iruka had written up a list of acceptable sicknesses to miss school for. The first one was genital herpes, the last was death. In between were various other illnesses- cardiac arrest, glaucoma, lead poisoning, teen pregnancy (second trimester and beyond). They had naturally assumed he was kidding until Naruto sauntered in late claiming he had come down with a devastating case of acromegaly, healed only through diligent prayer in a homemade shrine, burning incense to the wish to shrink back down to an appropriate size for attending class. Then Iruka had led him to the Sick List, posted proudly on the wall, skimmed down, reported the genetical disease absent, and gave Naruto detention for the week.

Sasuke had never read the damned thing in-depth, but he was pretty sure a nasty case of the butterflies was not one of the posted. And after Kakashi's lecture after their fight he didn't really want to piss off the white-haired Jounin by skipping and lying. It all came down to a narrow choice- risk being kicked out of Kakashi's training or confront the blonde idiot.

The choice was painfully obvious. But that didn't mean, as he closed the door to his house behind him and locked it with the key around his neck, hidden by the huge flaring collar, he didn't complain to himself in muttered undertones.

-

Hinata was always quiet but Kiba could always tell when she was moping-quiet, when she was simply unable to work up the courage to speak her mind and when she had actually shut herself inside her head. It worried him when she went like this; she didn't even talk to him anymore and he'd made it amply clear in all their time as teammates that if she ever, _ever_ needed someone to talk to he'd be there. He'd listen. He'd be completely silent through everything she had to say and then talk to her, as non-judgmental as he could be. Hell, he'd listened to her talk in soft tones about Naruto so many times it made him sick to think about it but he'd always been there, always.

Now, she refused to talk to him. He'd asked Shikamaru to talk to her, and nothing. He'd even talked Shino into a sort of near-silent conference but even the bug-shinobi had been unable to pry anything from his quiet teammate.

Now she stared up at him with an expression torn between timid puzzlement at absolute, hysterical depression and Kiba was forced to consider that cornering her by the Ninja Academy on their way to meet Kurenai, pressing her against a wall, and asking her in barely-growling tones what was wrong with her was perhaps not such a perfect idea.

But what could he do? He was a canine-nin, subtlety was really more of a cat thing than a dog, and it wasn't really Kiba's highest trait. "Hinata," he said, trying again, clearing his voice of anything threatening and even releasing a great deal of pressure to the girl's wrist, "what's wrong?"

Akamaru- always useful in picking up girls; who could say no to a puppy- whimpered and reached out of Kiba's jacket to nuzzle Hinata. She wasn't like any other girl but no one could stand up against _that._ She smiled, slightly, then looked up at Kiba, his face forced to gentle, understanding, supportive.

She blinked, once, twice. Her hands curled up for a moment, then relaxed, and she broke into tears.

Kiba, in true male fashion, stood stupidly for a second, letting Hinata sob into her hands. Akamaru whimpered. Hinata's shoulder shook.

Then, Cupid, God of Love, flew from his heavenly cloud, raised his golden bow, and smacked Kiba soundly over the head with it. The canine-nin blinked, then reached out and gathered Hinata's shoulders in his arms, pulling her to cry into his chest, whispering comfort into her hair.

"Hinata, what is it? What's wrong?"

She was still for a second, then gasped raggedly and continued shaking. He held her, firmly but gently, trying to keep both Akamaru and Hinata braced against his chest without hurting either of them. Because both seemed content to lean against him, he supposed he was doing a good job.

After a long time like that, Kiba standing like a rock, letting the tears flow into his jacket, Hinata took in a trembling breath and whispered, "Na- Na- Naruto will nev- never love me."

"Don't be stupid, Hinata; you're a wonderful girl, pretty, nice. He'll notice you soon enough. He just can't see past Sakura right now because he thinks he has to-"

"It's not... it's not Sakura." He felt her hands clutch at his jacket and had to swallow to keep from crying himself. How could a girl with such powerful eyes be so completely blind- not about Naruto; she was probably right that he would never see Hinata as he should- but about Kiba? "He's... he doesn't love her, not- not really _love_."

"So why can't he love you?" She seemed perfectly content to stay where he had put her so he relaxed his grip and let his fingers trail through her short hair. She had such cute hair. Too many girls let their hair grow long in desperate hopes that Sasuke would notice them. Stupid, really.

That was when Hinata really shocked him. "Na- Naruto loves Sasu- Sasuke." And then she cried again, and kept crying while he tried to get over that particular hurtle. He hadn't been expecting _that_.

God dammit, everyone loved Sasuke. Kiba felt unexpectedly angry at Naruto for breaking Hinata's heart though he had been wanting Hinata to see she didn't have a chance with him for a long time. "He's not good enough for you, Hinata," he told her, quietly, while she shook with anguish in his arms.

"No- no one lo- loves me. No one- no one ever will."

That- that was absurd.

"Hinata." His voice was always rough; there were no tears in his eyes and he wasn't choking on the next words. If he told himself that enough times he would believe it himself and really machismo is just a series of self-deluding lies anyway. He blinked, twice, as the small girl pressed against him sobbed again. "Hinata. Open up your _eyes_."

The shaking stopped slowly, and Hinata shifted to lift her face to his, white eyes wide. He didn't want to kiss her, kissing her would scare her and he didn't want to make a bad situation worse for her. Kiba contrived to show everything he was feeling in his own eyes, straining to show the girl everything in his heart. He knew it worked when pupil-less eyes widened in sudden understanding and Hinata stuttered, "Ki- Kiba!" before burying her face into his coat again.

He wrapped his arms around her again and bit back a sigh. Well. He'd either managed to make everything right or break Hinata's heart forever. Right now, however, he couldn't really think around the small, frail, female body against his chest and he was starting to think he could stand here and hold her forever, until Naruto and Sasuke and everyone else fell off the earth. Love, he decided, greatly daringly placing a kiss into Hinata's hair, was ridiculous.

-

Kakashi was late. That was expected.

Sasuke was late, and that was not.

Naruto shifted from one foot to the other, feeling uncomfortable around Sakura like he'd never felt before. For the fourth time- he was keeping count- he tried to start a conversation but this time _neither_ of them were in the mood for it.

Sakura had meant to apologize to Naruto for bailing out on them the day before but she couldn't force herself to do that. She had to admit to herself that she didn't have a chance and leave so that Naruto could ravish _her_ Sasuke-kun alone and she didn't feel the least bit guilty, just a little sick with the disappointment and a little light-headed with her own personal sacrifice. As well as a little bitter. She'd expected to see Naruto and Sasuke approaching her with their arms around each other or at least together, not individually and completely silent. She had been steeling herself against _that_, not this complete and total denial of everything she had done for them.

_Maybe they don't really like each other, maybe Sasuke _does_ love me..._

_And maybe Naruto's love turned Sasuke into a mermaid and he swam cheerfully into the sea._ She hated to admit it- second place to _Naruto_, imagine that- but both prospects were pretty much bullshit. She saw how they looked at each other. She'd seen how they would look at each other for years, now, it had only just recently become clear what they meant. She had seen how Naruto's face had lit up and how he had tried to hide his tears of relief when Sasuke had gotten back up so long ago when the dark-haired shinobi has supposedly 'died' and had seen how Sasuke's eyes softened when they met the blonde's.

And she'd had to admit that not only did Sasuke feel nothing like that for her, but _she'd_ never felt anything that strongly for anyone before in her life. She was a girl; moreover, a flirty, emotional, _teenage_ girl and her love-radar was going off in full.

That didn't mean she hadn't almost cried last night when she'd finally gotten home. She'd curled up on her couch, eyes squeezed shut, a quiet mantra repeating in her head- _I'm a shinobi, I can't die by broken heart. I'm a shinobi, I'm a ninja, I'm not going to break down because of something like this!_

Not quite Naruto or Hinata's daring exclamations of their 'ninja ways', but it was something. She'd gone the whole night without crying and had actually felt a little better this morning, able at least to confront Naruto and Sasuke no matter what had happened, able to see their stares again but more open, readily answered by the other, soft and deep and _in love._

She hadn't been expecting what she had gotten. She refused to think that her giving up her chances at a life forever with Sasuke would be completely wasted by this blonde idiot.

"I wonder where Sasuke is?" she tendered quietly.

"Who cares?" Naruto had asked; not snarling or snapping but the bitterness apparent in his voice, staring intent on the ground.

Sakura bit her lip. Stupid Naruto; this was getting annoying! She hadn't sacrificed her chance at love so that he could be all huffy and moody...

She caught sight of Sasuke wading through the crowd and turned to meet him; he acknowledged neither her nor Naruto, giving both a silent glare before retreating into the store's shadow and bracing his shoulders against the wall.

_Sasuke, you bastard, you're late!_ Naruto _should_ have said. Instead, he turned his head silently and slowly away from the dark-haired ninja, his arms folded over his chest, more like a frail and pathetic shield than a defiant gesture.

_Shut up, you annoying idiot,_ Sasuke should have replied. But there was nothing to reply to, so he just stared blankly at blonde locks and said nothing.

_Sasuke-kun! I missed you! Are you excited about our mission?_ But Sakura kept her mouth shut, watching the two Genin. After a while, Sasuke looked away from Naruto, down the street; Naruto kept staring at Mt. Hokage. Sakura ground her teeth in frustration. She wanted to ask what was going on but she had the sinking feeling it was long and complicated and drawn-out and emotional and not likely to come out of either boy's mouths any time soon. She would like to know, however, whether her selfless and noble sacrifice was going to be completely wasted.

"Hi, guys!" Kakashi's arrival had gone surprisingly unnoticed and he seemed as surprised by their surprise as they were by him. (It was unlikely that he actually was but he made a good show of it.) "No mission again today; they were letting the students in the Academy help with the easier D-ranked missions so they could see what it's like being a ninja." He grinned, visible eye closing for a moment under the crinkles of his smile. "Asuma didn't have anything else to do so I figured if you all wanted to you could spar with Team 10."

Sakura's shrug, Naruto's smile, and Sasuke's nod were not precisely what Kakashi had expected. Well, maybe from Sasuke; he wouldn't be _too_ happy because of course he didn't think any of the three members from Team 10- or, for that matter, any Genin in Konoha- was his level or worth his attention, but he'd expected Naruto to exuberate at least a _little_ and maybe some kind of emotional reaction from Sakura. She usually hated sparring but they _were_ talking about Ino, after all, and the final chance to prove once and for all (in theory) which one of the two was worthy of the honor of Sasuke's attention, so one way or another some kind of expression would have been more... expected.

He didn't know what was wrong with Sakura. Looking at the lines in Naruto's forehead, he guessed the blonde'd had a long night. Looking at Sasuke, he guessed it wasn't a long night spent with a good friend, for which both might be a little bitter.

Either way, they had a while to walk and he figured they should get started. With a broad grin on his face (he really did, you know, love the drama of teenage love-triangles), he led the way.

-

To be perfectly honest, Sasuke didn't know how the hell he'd ended up halfway up Mt. Hokage, leaning against the rock, with the very Genin he'd steeled himself to ignore completely and entirely all day. He hadn't talked to the blonde. He hadn't made any prolonging eye contact. He hadn't acknowledged Naruto's existence in any way. He hadn't made any of the fatal mistakes that always led to this sort of confrontation, so it led to reason that, defiant of any pattern he'd worked to avoid or any train of logical thought, the exact sort of confrontation he'd made to avoid occurred anyway.

Sparring had been... fun. In a word. They'd drawn lots, at it would have it, rather than just being paired up by logic, a member of Team 7 against a corresponding member of Team 10. And so that was how Naruto and Sasuke had been paired up for their second fight in one week, to the great chagrin of Kakashi. (Their sensei'd asked to redraw but Sakura, who'd been paired against Ino, had refused and no one really wanted to change their partners.)

They'd gotten a little painted ring, a circle of red paint over dirt and sticks, set apart from Shikamaru and Chouji's and Sakura and Ino's rings. Kakashi had lost himself in the clever innuendos making up _Come Come Violence_ and so Asuma gave them the rules. "No-holds barred sparring. Advanced weaponry not allowed, and remember-" the bearded man glared at Naruto and Sasuke, dark eyes narrowed, "this is _sparring_. Not real fighting. The goal is to incapacitate your opponent, not _de_capitate him."

Sasuke had given Naruto his first reaction since they'd seen each other for the first time that day. Nothing but a brief, silent glare, a wordless warning against jeopardizing Sasuke's claim to Genin-hood.

Naruto had replied with a scowl of his own, a wordless reminder not to tell him what to do.

Then the fight had started.

It had ended almost half an hour later, after Shikamaru had pulled a decisive victory over Chouji, ending the fight with a half-hearted shrug, (Chouji would have won but Shikamaru wasn't allowed to forfeit) and after Sakura and Ino had slowed and stopped their match and the older of the two was struggling to comb sweat and blood out of her blonde ponytail. It would have ended a lot sooner if Sasuke had actually tried, but it was a matter of pride and he refused to regard Naruto as someone worth the effort. He refused to acknowledge him enough to actually fight. He blocked more hits than he gave, didn't use seals, dodged more hits than he blocked, didn't use any more weapons than one or two kunai, refused to meet the blonde's eyes or use his Sharingan against him. Naruto's response to this, when he realized what his teammate was doing, was to fight harder, determined to prove himself; his frenzy silently screamed at Sasuke to acknowledge him but the black-haired boy refused to. So the fight took a long time.

And then, after half an hour of fighting when Naruto was breathing hard and even Sasuke had broken a sweat, Shikamaru and Chouji were sharing the blanket of Chouji's spread jacket and Ino and Sakura were kneeling in the grass, watching, Sasuke managed to get behind the blonde and slammed his elbow into Naruto's back. Gasping, the _kyuubi_ vessel staggered forward, his legs swept from under him by Sasuke's low kick, falling forward onto the ground. He rolled and got up, but unsteadily, and in a heartbeat the darker Genin's arm had coiled around his throat and chest, the glint of his kunai's point pressed against the side of Naruto's neck.

There was a moment of silence, Naruto fighting against his teammate's grip, but they remained frozen in that position for a long time until Asuma said, dutifully, "Sasuke wins."

"No," Naruto snarled loudly, writhing harder; the grip around him tightened for a second, then suddenly released, and he sprawled out on the ground again.

"Are we done for today, sensei?" Sasuke growled, not even bothering to insult his fallen foe.

Kakashi studied his pupil, a little shaken by what he saw. Sasuke had violent mood swings, it seemed, where Naruto was concerned. "Yeah," he replied, after a second. "We're done."

The black-haired Genin nodded and vanished into the leaves above their heads, running along the tree branches, sticking to them with chakra as he put as much distance between himself and Naruto as humanly possible.

"What the fuck is his problem?" Shikamaru asked, reclining against the tree the jacket was next to. Not that, looking at the blonde staring after him, the shadow-nin couldn't guess. The question was formality.

"Sasuke-kun?" Ino took a step forward but even she recognized it as a lost cause.

"Crazy," Chouji remarked, pulling a red apple from his pocket and starting into it.

Naruto slowly staggered to his feet, obviously having a little trouble finding his equilibrium. Sakura took a step towards him, hand outstretched to help him, but he was already walking forward. "You bastard!" he screamed after his teammate, and took off after him at a half-limping run.

"Crazy," Sakura agreed under her breath.

-

And that, at least, was how he ended up halfway up Mt. Hokage, out of breath and out of control, throwing rocks at the stone with so much force that they embedded into the side of the mountain. He felt sick, sick with guilt and sick with a whirling feeling in his stomach that could only be the butterflies he'd had this morning, evolved into some nasty being with massive teeth that shredded at his intestines with the ferocity of a being of unrequited love, and he tried to justify the subtle ways he'd worked to humiliate his friend by telling himself at least he hadn't wanted to bang him at any time during the fight.

_No, I didn't. I just exhausted myself to hurt him and then ran away as soon as I was done. _The road up the mountain was pretty much empty; it was the less-traveled by road, the other side having fewer trees and more buildings, stores and traffic, and he relished in being left alone, even though he was tired of the company of his own damn thoughts.

"Sasuke!"

Between his thoughts and the blonde, however, he would choose his thoughts. Eyes narrowed, he neither slowed down nor turned around, but kept walking as though he hadn't heard Naruto's voice.

"Sasuke!" The _kyuubi_ vessel was running to catch up but Sasuke refused to literally run from him; he kept his eyes plastered forward, completely ignoring the other Genin. "Sasuke! Sasuke you fucking bastard, turn around and look at me! You arrogant prick!" All-too-familiar hands closed around his shoulders and spun him around, hot blue eyes glaring up at him. Sasuke tried to turn back around but Naruto's fingers dug into his upper arm hard enough to leave bruises.

"What are you doing?" he asked, tonelessly, pulling away from the blonde's grip.

"You asshole! You didn't even look at me that whole fucking time- don't!" Before his teammate could walk away again Naruto grabbed his wrist and pulled him back. Sasuke looked down at him and was hit, hard, by every impulse he had been trying to ignore. Like a rubber band pulled too far back, it snapped forward with enough force to hurt.

"Get off of me." He couldn't keep the anger from tinting his voice, the measured words clipped with tension. Naruto's fingers dug tighter.

"You weren't even fighting me, you fuck! You pretended like I wasn't there!" Sasuke pulled even more voraciously away, turning for another escape attempt. "You didn't even look- don't ignore me!" For the second time that day his hands closed tightly around Sasuke's shoulders and this time, Naruto didn't give his teammate the chance to pull away. The blonde shoved him against the stone of the mountain side, hard enough to knock the breath from Sasuke's lungs, and pressed his mouth against the darker Genin's, a quiet but forceful demand.

One thought repeated in Naruto's head: he would _not_ let Sasuke ignore him. He wouldn't let the arrogant, black-haired bastard touch him and kiss him and turn everything upside down and then walk away like nothing had happened, like this was nothing to him, a giant joke at the blonde's expense. He wouldn't let that happen, he couldn't let that happen, because he couldn't let it go that easily.

Sasuke tried to writhe away for only one second, then something broke inside of him; it wasn't worth giving this up for the sake of giving it up. It wasn't worth it to try and get away, not when he was perfectly content to let things finally go his way.

Their fourth kiss was entirely different than their third kiss, and their second, and, obviously, their first. Naruto had never known that one action could be experienced in so many different ways. While their first had been an embarrassing accident, their second pure impulse and their third some sort of carnal experience, this was different, new; an explosion of some wild and weird emotion that fluttered in both of their stomachs like a trapped bird, spread through their bodies like an unexpectedly pleasurable shock. Naruto's hands tightened around his teammate's shoulders as Sasuke kissed him back, arms slowly twining around him, fingers burying into his hair.

He pulled away, not when he realized what he was doing or when he got scared or when Sasuke pushed him away but when he wanted to, sliding away in the darker Genin's embrace. For a second, they stood and breathlessly watched one another, searching for an affirmative that the emotional reaction had happened to the other, too, and not just to them; whatever they saw in the other's eyes had to suffice because neither wanted to let the other go.

"Don't ever ignore me," Naruto murmured, and it was halfway between a sharp demand and a plea. Sasuke looked down at him, surprised both at the words and at the strength of what he felt after them. Ignoring the blonde was the last on his to-do list at the moment. But he wasn't certain he could handle deflowering the blonde at the moment so it would have to suffice to pull him back into the circle of his arms, holding onto him and pressing his mouth into the blonde mess of the _kyuubi_ vessel's hair.

The demon-fanged butterflies seemed to have calmed down- perhaps devoured by the newborn bird- and he, for the first time in a couple of years, was perfectly happy.

Naruto had three words on the tip of their tongue, but they scared him so he didn't say them. He had images floating around in his head but they terrified him so he shied away from them. He wasn't so shocked at the images of what he wanted to do to Sasuke, but more what he wanted the black-haired Genin to do to _him_ in return, images that while he was so close, held against the idol of his affections, were almost unbearable.

Three words, and he couldn't say them. Three words on the tip of his tongue. But he couldn't think, couldn't do anything beyond letting himself be held to and trying to hold on himself while fireworks of feeling exploded in his gut.

_ end chapter six _


	7. Beauty as Learned From Monsters

Chapter Seven

by Ember, Lady of fl00f

-

Till you show me how it could be...

Till you show me how it could be

And when the world turns over

I'll keep my ears to the wall

And when the world turns over

I'll keep my feet straight on the ground

-

There was no doubting that it was spring.

The sun was everywhere, which, thinking about it, was a stupid thought to think but it was, giving everything a cheerfully yellow-gold tint, and pressing down a perfect, not too-hot warmth onto bare arms and a wide face as Naruto, reclining onto the sturdy presence of the tree behind him and sitting on his jacket spread out across the grass, tilted his head back, eyes closed, towards the bright blue sky. The lake was glittering in front of him, huge and blue and sparkling like a smashed sapphire, while the smells of damp grass and dogwood and cherry blossoms filled the air, like a less intense version of Sakura's perfume, or the way you imagined the princess garden in the story books smelling. It was their one day off in a long time, and it was perfect. It was the kind of day where no one was doing anything but enjoying the sun, the kind of day that was perfect for the thinking of all-too-poetic thoughts and romantic contemplation. And Naruto, who was overdue to do some thinking, was enjoying it.

He ran his fingers through the grass beside the orange folds of his jacket and sighed, not quite sure where this was going. It was two days after he had been confronted with... well, with Sasuke, and his feelings thereof, and the hour or two when the black-haired Genin had just held him. He didn't know why it felt so good to have nothing asked of him and not have anything to ask, to just sit there and be with someone. Even someone like Sasuke. Especially someone like Sasuke. He wasn't sure which anymore. But it didn't matter because it did feel good and he hadn't ever wanted it to end, but time never slows down when you don't want it to go on and soon it was dark, and they'd kissed again and gone home.

The day before, they'd had a mission, preceded by thirty minutes of picking up the phone, staring at it, putting it down, and picking it up again, until the droning 'busy' signal of the unused phone drove him insane and he gave up on trying to call his teammate. He figured they had something to talk about but he didn't know what and he couldn't figure it out and the whole thing freaked him out a little. If this were Sakura it would be easy; he'd call her and set up a date and walk around all day feeling that light little buzzing feeling he'd felt once or twice when she'd talk to him and accidentally act disposed towards him. But it wasn't Sakura, it was Sasuke, and Sasuke was very different. The wrong move would screw everything up, and Naruto didn't want everything screwed up. He wanted... he didn't know what he wanted. He didn't want everything going to hell. He didn't want...

God dammit. He didn't know.

So they'd had a mission and managed to screw it up royally, because both of them were quiet and uncomfortable and entirely out of step. Naruto knew why and wondered if Sasuke did; but Sasuke was smarter than he was so he was pretty sure the black-haired Genin knew. Now, thinking back on it, the blonde didn't even remember what the mission was. It had the last thing on his mind at the time. He had been torn between making out with Sasuke, tearing off his clothes and screwing him right then and there, and changing his name and running into the mountains to become the Hermit of the Wood. He'd tried to work up the nerve to talk to his teammate at least six times, but he couldn't. What could he say? _Hey, Sasuke, I liked making out with you_ just didn't wrap up a week of emotional turmoil and mental breakdown, not to mention to absurd surges of hormones and the whole 'questioning of sexuality' thing.

He knew what would sum it all up, what he could say that would make everything fall into perspective. What he could say that would relieve everything on his mind. He knew what he could say, but he couldn't say it, couldn't even think it, because it was absurd and stupid and gross and a little terrifying. A lot of adjectives for three words.

Slowly, he opened his eyes, looking out over the lake, the faint stripe of land on the other side splitting the water from the sky. It seemed impossible that the water could hold anything like a sea monster, on a day like today, but Naruto had seen enough monsters coming out of pretty places, metaphorically and literally, to keep him up a hill away from the lake. It was a stupid thing to be scared of, and he wasn't a little kid anymore, he was a shinobi, and he shouldn't be scared of monsters or water or the dark, but that didn't get him any closer to the lake and it didn't get him to throw away the garlic he kept in a plastic bag in his dresser, in case he heard noises in the night and had to put it under his bed to keep monsters from getting in there. He was scared of stupid things, yeah. Sea monsters and leaving his closet door open at night so that the blackness inside looked like it could hold anything, and Iruka when he got really mad, and Sasuke, and...

I L Y .

Three words shouldn't scare him but neither should some rumor probably prompted by a floating log.

It didn't matter, because both of them scared him, so he sat alone up the hill from the water and watched the lake glittering beneath him. He thought about monsters and he thought about ninjas and he thought about Sasuke a lot more than he had intended to. He'd intended to come up here to get _away_ from thoughts of the dark-haired Genin.

_Screw him, anyway._ Sasuke hadn't been able to talk to Naruto, either. It would have been gratifying, seeing his rival as much at a loss as he was for a change, except that he really wanted one of them to make some sort of move towards the end of this and he couldn't bring himself to do it. They had watched each other from the corners of their vision the whole mission the day before, not even trying to hide it from one another. They tried to catch the other's eyes but they couldn't go beyond that. They were, after all, only teenage boys.

So what now? He could just give up on it. It made his stomach feel like it was coated in lead and his throat work noiselessly but it seemed like the only current option. Then again, he _could_ go take off his clothes and dance in the older Genin's front yard until he was acknowledged and let inside but while that seemed like a much more optimistic ideal the thought of falling in love- or worse, having _fallen_ in love, having no control, having already started to fall aimlessly and helplessly into the depths of... well, of _love_- was unbearably terrifying. Maybe if it wasn't _Sasuke._ Maybe if it wasn't this... weird. Strong. Like he didn't have a choice anymore, like he was already in too deep to get back out, and now he was trapped and couldn't ever be normal and couldn't ever like a girl and couldn't ever think about sex and adulthood without Sasuke being part of the picture, or most of the picture, or the picture in whole. It was strange, different, ridiculous.

_On the other hand,_ he couldn't stop from thinking, _when was I ever 'normal'?_

And there was one person who didn't care or maybe even liked him better for it and didn't flinch away or mutter behind his back but acted the opposite, acted like he never wanted to let the blonde go...

_Weird._ But enter Sasuke. Everything about him was weird. Most of all, the fact that he... he was willing to... Naruto couldn't finish the thought because it all went back to the three words, and he still couldn't get past them, still kept working himself into the same roadblock. He sighed and opened his eyes, blinking in the omnipresent sunlight, shading his eyes as he looked out over the lake, to the forest beyond it.

If he hadn't opened his eyes he wouldn't have seen it, it was there and gone in a second. But he had looked out just in time to see the water break, the faceted sapphire flaw and split in a heartbeat, something long and silver burst out of the water and dive back under, all within the time it took to open his eyes. He felt his stomach sinking, suddenly and dramatically, but the whatever-it-was was obviously going away from him, and without imminent danger curiosity won over fear. He ran down the hill, leaving his jacket spread out on the grass, and sped along the bank of the lake, down to the mud and running along so that the soles of his shoes splashed in the water.

He was out of breath from trying to keep up with the supposed path of the water monster when it broke surface again, its long and silver body glittering in the sunlight, ribbonlike tearing through the air, its narrow head slicing back into the depths. The crown of its antlers broke into the lake, a dozen ripples shooting out from it. It took a second for the length of it to get back into the water, shimmering silver-white and glittering, its long and waving tail vanishing last, lingering for a second as if to verify that it had, in fact, been there.

_Holy shit._ It would take an idiot to not recognize the creature, and Naruto, for all his Narutoness, wasn't really an idiot. At least, not much of one. Not so much that he didn't recognize it, sliding back into the blue, for what it was.

It didn't come back up. There was no patch of darker water moving in a telltale direction or another spectacular jump in the distance. Naruto had a definite feeling that there wouldn't be another jump, that with the one appearance the Sea Monster of Konoha had made its mark and could now rest peacefully under the surface. If monsters were like ninjas and it worried about being forgotten, about not making an impression or making history, it didn't need to worry. From the magnificent spread of its black crown to the tip of its tail, the narrow head and long, ribbon-like body between with the short, clawed legs, it couldn't be forgotten.

His sea monster, the creature he'd been scared of for the past few weeks, the lake beast that had kept him away from this exact place, was an honest-to-god dragon.

Naruto looked like an idiot, standing there ankle-deep in lake water, his sandals thoroughly saturated, staring at nothing like he'd never seen water before. He didn't care. It wasn't like sometimes Jounin weren't called in to take care of a dangerous or mad dragon, or like there weren't stories about wisdom or kindness passed down to humans, but for the most part something like that was a once-in-a-lifetime type of thing and for something the blonde had been scared of for a week the lake monster was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

...Well. Maybe second.

He blinked, and after a second could finally take his eyes off the spot where the monster had been. "Heh," he whispered, barely loud enough that he himself could hear it. "It was a dragon. It was really a dragon." He'd never seen a dragon before and in all the stories about them they only came to the people who were worthy of seeing them, which amounted to everyone but Naruto in the _kyuubi_ vessel's mind. He smiled, a little bemused (a new emotion for him), and turned away from the lake, grabbing his jacket as he started to walk home.

By the time he got to Konoha, he had a plan. By the time he was getting close to home, it had fledged and developed, and he was grinning like a maniac to the surprise of the people around him.

It was starting to get close to dusk by the time he'd finally gotten into his house, and he was all ready to finish his plan. He decided to wait until it was completely dark, because this time he wasn't just doing it for attention; he dug around in his closet until he'd found a really long piece of bungee cord, a paintbrush, and a couple of buckets of red paint. And then he sat and waited for it to get dark.

He didn't wait for second thoughts, didn't wait to think it over, in fact shoved away all doubts with typical Naruto determination. He didn't want to doubt what he was going to do because sometimes you got scared of stupid things and sometimes they turned out to be the most beautiful in the end.

-

Kakashi was late, again.

Naruto was late for the first time in a long time, and Sakura was starting to get impatient.

Alright, so maybe she had been late a couple of days ago. And maybe Sasuke had been, after that. So maybe it was the blonde's turn already. She didn't keep track and she didn't really care; she was impatient to get this over with because she had gone through the trouble of waking up two hours early and walking all the way out here (they were on the road halfway into the forest, which was a stupid place to have to go to meet their sensei, but there had to be a reason behind it; maybe they were going to another city for their mission) and she was ready to start. But it had been a long time and neither Naruto nor Kakashi seemed to be about to show up.

"He's really late," she said quietly. Sasuke turned to look at her, his face wiped clean but a hint of worry lurking behind it. Sakura was a girl, she knew how to pick that sort of thing out.

"He always is," the dark Genin drawled.

"You know who I mean." She smiled at him, but he didn't smile back, like nothing had changed over the past week. Maybe nothing had. Sakura frowned. She didn't like the idea of going through the whole 'sacrifice my final chance at love' thing without Sasuke and Naruto even getting together. She'd have to try harder, especially if- as it was starting to look- the fate of their love was going to depend on her. "One of us should go look for him."

Sasuke grunted. "He probably got lost," he growled. "Or he's waiting back in Konoha. Or he overslept. Or he tripped and forgot how to get up. Or he-"

"Or we should look for him," Sakura broke in. Sasuke shot her a glance, surprised that she would interrupt him or correct him instead of stupidly nodding along. She flashed him a grin. "Of course, one of us should stay here and wait for Kakashi..."

"I will." There was no hesitation. He was really _resisting_ going to look for the blonde, which was interesting.

"You're a lot faster than me, though," Sakura protested, looking pleadingly up at him. _Don't fight me on this, I'm trying to help you!_ Sasuke shrugged.

"You can walk just as well as anyone else," he snapped.

Sakura smiled grimly to herself. It was getting increasingly obvious that _something_, anything, had happened between her two teammates. A week ago, Sasuke would have gone just to get the ten-minute walk to himself, without the pink-haired girl clutching his arm. Of course, a week ago Sakura _would_ have been clutching his arm, and would have died rather than propose that one of them leave the other even just for half an hour or so. Odd how these things change. "Not as well as you," she replied, reaching out and placing her hand on his shoulder. It still hurt a little when he pulled away but less because she had meant for him to. Plan B: make him uncomfortable enough to _run_ to Naruto.

"He'll come soon enough," Sasuke growled, moving a couple of feet away from her. She followed him. This was getting kind of fun.

She smiled like he had just confessed his undying love to her and moved close enough that _she _started to get uncomfortable. And, gay or not, he was still hot enough that... she was straying from the plan. "Okay," she said, grinning. "It'll give us time alone. I can't stand it when we don't get any time without Naruto around, anyway- if you think he's okay." The Ino-tactic- that is, jumping on Sasuke and clinging with every available limb with whatever part of his body happens to be unoccupied by admirers- never worked for Sakura, probably because Sasuke didn't care about Ino and couldn't care less about the tiny amount of weight she provided, but had developed a sort of friendship with Sakura and therefore didn't like having her pretending it was more. She could, however, use the Sakura-tactic- arm-clinging. She wrapped both of her arms around one of his, leaned her head against his shoulder, and worked her special Sakura charm.

It always worked. "Are you sure _you_ don't want to go looking for him?" Sasuke pulled his arm from her grasp and tried to back away, but as always she followed him like a spaniel.

She pouted, trying on her spoiled-little-girl face. There was little or possibly nothing that Sasuke hated like the spoiled-little-girl face. "It's too long of a walk," she said. "And one of us should wait for Kakashi..."

Sasuke glared at her, trying to determine whether or not this was some trick to get him to go- and finally deciding it didn't matter. When it came down to it, it was a choice between confronting Naruto, possibly alone, and being molested by Sakura. And Naruto ranked above Sakura. Well above Sakura. "Fine," he growled, starting down the road without saying anything else.

"You're going to find Naruto? Good luck!" And she meant it in every sense of the word. Sasuke scowled to himself, walking quickly without looking back; he wasn't sure whether he was glad or upset or on the verge of panic with this new development in the day. When you deny the presence of your emotions for as long as he had it gets hard to tell exactly what you're feeling. He'd been trying to get the blonde alone for a long time, now, but had never worked up the nerve; when they finally didn't have things to do or people breathing down their necks they'd probably just start making out again and nothing would get said. And Sasuke, for the first time in perhaps a year, really had some things he had to say. They were things he couldn't get right when he just thought them, things that he didn't know if he could articulate, things that didn't make sense when Naruto wasn't around- but he still had to say them. They had floated around him for weeks, now, and he had to say them or they would drive him insane. He hated saying what he was feeling; it was awkward and stupid and opening yourself up to get hurt but at the same time, he didn't know how far he could get without the _kyuubi_ vessel knowing what was on his mind.

Sakura watched her dark-haired teammate's retreating back and smirked to herself. She always won. Even when she lost, she won. It was... her ninja way.

-

"Are you sure it was Naruto?" Ino sounded doubtful, leaning with the palms of her hands flat against the bars of the black-painted, metal fence. "It could just be some idiot copying him."

Kiba shook his head. "Nah," he replied, staring ahead. Akamaru whimpered from his jacket and he paused to run his fingers through the dog's ruff. "Had to be Naruto. Arrogant asshole, but he's right- no one else would ever do anything that horrible. He's the only one with the balls to desecrate Mt. Hokage like that."

Hinata had a frail smile and Shikamaru, who heard her speak maybe three times a month, almost jumped to hear her quiet voice. "I- I don't know that- that I would call that dese-desecration."

Kiba looked down at her, smiled, and looked back out to the mountain. "Maybe not," he said, quietly.

Ino grinned almost cattily and elbowed Hinata. "Got yourself a boyfriend?"

"Ki- Kiba?"

Ino's eyebrow rose. "Naruto!"

Hinata chuckled. "N- no." She pressed the heel of her hand to her mouth and smiled into her knuckles. "No- not Naruto. Th- that's not for me."

"Then who's it for?" Ino looked around- Shikamaru, Chouji, Kiba, Hinata, and even Shino looked faintly, knowingly amused. She frowned, ticked off at being left out of the joke. Her eyes darkened and she shot a glare at Shikamaru, who kept his mouth shut. "And don't you dare say-"

"Sasuke!" Kiba rose onto his toes and waved, catching the dark Genin's eye. "Look what your teammate did to Mt. Hokage!" He gestured over the fence then pulled his hand back to scratch behind Akamaru's ears.

Sasuke, walking quickly past the fence, paused to glance over his shoulder to the mountain more by reflex than because he really cared. He was trying to find Naruto, not stop and talk about nothing for half an hour with the idiots that called themselves shinobi. He started to walk past them, then looked again, froze, and stepped wordlessly and almost unconsciously forward, staring in complete and utter shock at the side of the mountain. He didn't say anything, against or defending his teammate, just stared silently, breathlessly ahead like he couldn't move, or think, or anything. Like someone had walked behind him and clubbed the last of his breath from his body. And then something strange happened.

Sasuke, morbid and anti-social shinobi genius of Konoha, smiled softly and smally with something like real happiness.

The left side of the Third Hokage's face boasted three words in bright red paint.

_I love you._

_ end chapter seven _


	8. Priorities

Chapter Eight

by Ember

-

Dead leaves and the dirty ground

When I know you're not around

Pop rocks and soda pop

When I hear your lips make a sound

When I hear your lips make a sound

Thirty notes in the mailbox

Will tell you I'm coming home

And I think I'm gonna stick around

For a while so you're not alone

For a while so you're not alone

-

After a while, they figured out that Sasuke wasn't coming back.

Kakashi, sitting in a low branch of a tall tree, and Sakura, sitting on the ground and leaning against the trunk, had been there for maybe an hour before they realized that either Sasuke had spent the last quarter of eternity looking for Naruto or circumstances had changed in Konoha, keeping the two Genin there; either way they weren't coming. Kakashi frowned, running his fingers through his white hair.

"Remind me not to treat Naruto to ramen for a while, will you?" he asked, stretching out the muscles that had cramped in the long wait of perching on the tree branch and reading his erotica. _Not_ buying ramen was probably the most extreme punishment one could concoct for Naruto that didn't break any assault or abuse laws. Sasuke, of course, was harder than that, because he tended not to care. "He's late on occasion (lazy) but he _never_ just... doesn't show up."

Sakura used the tree to help support herself as she got to her feet and ran her fingers through her long hair. Kakashi dropped to the ground beside her and raised a white eyebrow at the quiet smile on her face. She braced her hands behind her back and stretched her arms and shoulders, shaking the kinks out of her neck, deep in thought and obviously proud of something. Catching her mentor's eye she grinned sheepishly, caught with her head in the clouds, and struggled for a reply.

"No," she managed, fighting to keep the grin off her face, "he doesn't." She then busied herself with tying a loose shoelace (she was trying out sneakers instead of sandals, today; you can never have too many shoes), trying to smother the smile as she tied a double, tripled, then a mass of knots without thinking.

"And what are you so happy about?" The voice was close enough to her ear to startle her; she straightened and her shoulder caught Kakashi's chin. He seemed unphased. "Do you know something special about the graffiti on Mt. Hokage?"

Sakura blinked in surprise. "Graffiti?" she asked, dumbfounded. She had assumed Naruto and Sasuke were doing something _in love_, not that the idiot blonde was pulling one of his juvenile stunts and Sasuke was still looking for him. "What did Naruto-"

Kakashi stepped back, giving his student a little room, and smiled like the little perverted kid he was deep inside. "Confessions of love," he announced proudly, holding his book in one hand and gesturing with the other. "Scrawled across the mountain."

Her sugar-glazed mood restored, Sakura squealed and jumped into the air in a little dance of victory. She always won. Always.

-

After a second of watching Sasuke, with his uncharacteristic half-smile on his face, leaning over the fence and staring, Ino got distinctly uncomfortable. It wasn't hard. Shikamaru, if anyone had been saying anything, would have said that Sasuke had left the Garden, that he was somewhere else, that his mind was completely detached from his body. Kiba would have laughed loudly and Chouji would have snickered and Ino would have clubbed him over the head.

The silence was a little suffocating. Ino lunged forward, suddenly desperate to break it, and latched onto Sasuke's arm, smiling up at him as his half-trance was quickly broken and he staggered a step away from her and back. "Who do you think he was talking to?" she asked him, half frantically, gesturing at the mountains's lettering; she was getting the same sinking feeling she'd gotten once when her brother told her that her puppy had died and she refused to believe him. She had gone to talk to her parents and they kept talking in really slow, quiet, soft voices, like they were comforting her without even telling her why, and it slowly dawned on her now, like it had back then, that the dick had been right.

Sasuke pulled away from her, looked from Ino to the others in turn, and seemed to realize that he was caught. His face flushed for a second, then he straightened and glared down at them, looking as constructed and collected as was normal, but though the moment had passed it was still echoing, not quite gone.

"Like I know," he snarled. It even sounded lame, hypocritical, to him. With the silence broken, Kiba snickered loudly. Sasuke was obviously an inch from impaling him with a kunai. Ino backed up a pace, blinking.

"Sasuke?" she asked, quietly; but what did she expect him to say? _I'm not gay, Naruto was leaving a message for Sakura! Hahah! I tricked all of you!_ Yeah, _that_ sounded like Sasuke. And then the sing-a-long would start.

"Shut up," the Uchiha growled, turning around and starting to walk away. Ino took one step after him, then stopped, watching his retreating back. Kiba snickered again; this time, Sasuke ignored him, walking quickly like he couldn't stand being around his peers.

"Hey, Sasuke!" Kiba called after him a second time, waving again to the black-haired shinobi. Akamaru whimpered at the motion, and Sasuke hesitated and shot a pointed glare over his shoulder. The canine-nin, seemingly unaffected, grinned and said, with all evidence of sobriety, "Good job."

Sasuke studied the other Genin, then gave a minimalistic shrug that would have suited Shikamaru as well. A few more steps and he had vanished around a corner.

Shikamaru looked at the mountain out of the corner of his eye. The words glared at him, bright scarlet across the dust-colored rock. He couldn't imagine going through all that trouble just to tell one person three words; go through all that trouble and possible humiliation and _bother_ just for another person. He'd had a crush on Ino back when they were first teammates (that hadn't lasted very long, actually; she really was a frightening person after you got to know her for too long, and he had been forced to face the fact that he could never get married if the person he lived with spent as much time on their hair as she did, and while when she wanted to move out but couldn't afford her own place he and Chouji had agreed to be roommates, he wasn't sure how long he could take her if it lasted indefinitely) but he had never considered going through all that work to tell her that he liked her. He had always just assumed that if it was going to work out she would tell him _she_ liked _him_ and they would get together and go on dates and all of that crap, or not. He guessed love, real love, the sort of stuff people wrote pop songs for, required work, commitment, input, in which case he was not meant for true love. But whatever.

He glanced at his stricken teammate and grinned wryly. "So?" he asked, lazily, leaning back on the fence.

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, for fuck's sake, Shikamaru. You're too lazy to gloat!" She smiled but it was wane and fragile and she was obviously hurt by the loss of Sasuke. "Damn."

Hinata smiled, another frail smile, and the two girls met eyes and giggled. "Men," Ino sighed exaggeratedly. "Damn them all."

Hinata nodded, but she was standing a little close to Kiba for the agreement to carry weight. Chouji finished the rice-cake he'd been eating and shoved the metallic wrapper into his pocket; Shikamaru tossed him another that he'd picked up on the way home the day before. The slightly-chubby ninja's smile was aimed with equal affection towards both his new food and his teammate. (He had never gotten over amazement at how _well_ the shadow-nin knew him; how did he know that this type was Chouji's very favorite kind of rice cake?) With every possible expression of enjoyment, Chouji tore into his third snack since breakfast, stuffing the crinkling wrapper into his pocket with the other. Hinata sighed and Kiba carefully, almost subtly, put his arm around her shoulders. She blushed and stared at the ground.

Shikamaru rolled his eyes, catching sight of the red wording again. _I love you._

Troublesome.

-

He wasn't certain what to think, so he didn't think at all.

Uchiha Sasuke, the single heir to the Uchiha clan, genius shinobi, one of the top fledgling Genin, was almost home before he stopped feeling his own throbbing pulse. He was actually _inside_ before he could see anyone or anything without seeing red lettering overlaid over his vision. He was lucky that he had recovered his breath before then because for a second there he had honestly thought he wouldn't ever be able to breathe again.

And when had the strongest Genin in his class- probably, in a couple dozen years, at least from Konoha- let his guard down so much that one person with one three-word sentence could completely and utterly bowl him over, scatter his thoughts, shatter his self-perception?

He didn't know when, exactly, but it had happened. And he wanted it to happen again. And again and again and again because even being _near_ the blonde idiot was enough to make him happier than he had been in longer than he could remember, and for the life of him he didn't know why.

Ah, hell; yeah he did. He knew exactly why, had quite a few reasons- because he had finally, after years of not looking and not caring and pretending it didn't matter, found someone who liked him for who he was, not who he tried to be or pretended to be; liked him because he was Sasuke, not the cool, dark, silent kid in the back of the room. He felt that way because the fucking dolt was so endlessly cheerful, because he seemed incapable of being angsty or dark, because he could physically knock people over by force of personality alone. He felt that way because Naruto saw things perfectly clearly, clear enough to brag about the distant future and his dreams for it, clear enough to quote the moral code of the Shinobi from heart.

He felt that way because he loved the fucking idiot. And he felt that way because Naruto loved him back. For something that seemed so exceedingly simple it was mind-boggling and he sat for a second just marveling over it, thinking it again and again, holding the realization in his mind. _He loved him._ Did it matter which 'he' pertained to which Genin? It was interchangeable.

Uchiha Sasuke, solo heir to a genius Clan, did not believe in love, at least not the emotional kind, in any way, shape or form. But it took more willpower than Sasuke had, more denial than possessed by the entire Uchiha Clan in the history of Konoha as a whole, to refute the existence of loud, cheerful smiles or shouted challenges and it took more fortitude than any shinobi had ever possessed to deny what it all did to him.

For a second, a quiet tap at the door went almost unnoticed, then it shattered Sasuke's thoughts. He kept from jumping by form alone. Rigidly composing himself, setting his face, curbing the reactions of his various innards in response to speculation on who might be there, waiting for him, he rose and walked. Took some deep breaths. Reached the door. Another deep breath. He was composed.

It was Naruto, but he'd guessed. He managed not to really react at all, to look out like nothing had happened even though deep inside a voice inside of him was screaming in frustration, damning him to hell for his pride. He wanted to grab the blonde and pull him, screaming or fighting or laughing or whatever, into the relative privacy of his home, wanted to stand there with him and kiss him and never let him go, wanted to sit and tell him everything he'd thought and felt for the past week, the past month, the past year, until he finally got to the three words he'd just thought a couple minutes ago, the same three words to be repeated again and again and again because they were the only words guaranteed to never lose their meaning no matter how much they're used.

But he was Sasuke, and so he stood there, unable or unwilling- or _something- _to do anything. Naruto watched him, slightly-pointed canines worrying his lower lip. There were a few seconds of silence; a couple people walking by the house cast them looks as they moved by.

"Don't you have anything to say?" Naruto asked, quietly, but he didn't sound angry or judgmental or anything. It was weird, to hear him talking quietly. Like a police siren smothered with steel. "I'll start. I'm in love with you, Sasuke." Another moment of silence. Sasuke unconsciously beat down a smile. He wanted nothing more than to just grin like the lovestruck idiot he was but he couldn't let himself; it was beyond instinct to hide it, it was ingrained into who he was. "I don't know that there's anything left to say. I don't know..." Frustration flashed for a second in the blonde's face as he struggled to articulate what he was thinking. He was bad at serious moments like this. He was better when it was just them, and they were just friends, and all he wanted was someone to spot him a cup of ramen. "I just... damn it, Sasuke. I just want to be with you." There. He said it. It sounded like the last line in a chapter in one of Kakashi's novels but there it was, and at least it was out. He stood, and waited, and for a long time Sasuke didn't move, just watched him, but that was okay because he'd have stood out there all night if he had to if only to prove that he'd wait forever for the other boy.

The dark-haired boy took a step forward and hesitated, then walked completely out of his house and let the spring door snap closed behind him, settling into the latch carefully at the end of its swing. Naruto didn't know whether he wanted to stare at the ground like Hinata did or risk openly staring; but then, he decided there wasn't much left to hide so he went for the latter.

They stood, a couple feet away, then one foot, then only a few inches, doing nothing but watching each other. Naruto wondered if he'd always breathed in that weird, rhythmless way. He was starting to wonder if Sasuke felt alright when the taller boy's hand slid along his jawbone, tilting his face up, and the other's face drew closer. For a moment the blonde thought they were going to kiss but at the last second Sasuke moved past his mouth and brushed his lips against Naruto's ear.

"I love you, too," he replied, quietly. Then, "Idiot."

_Then_ they kissed.

Something like lightning ran up Naruto's spine, tightening his arms around the black-haired boy's shoulders, tilting his head to the side as his kissed the other Genin back. Sasuke's arms were around his waist, holding them almost plastered together, a single contour. They stood there, holding each other, kissing each other, ignoring what the idiots passing by muttered under their breath to one another or yelled out loud, because the fact that they were in love couldn't really get more public than it already was.

Anyway, Sasuke didn't really want to keep it a fucking secret. He was himself, what other people thought about him didn't matter.

_Most_ other people, at least. But that went without saying.

_I guess we should go meet Kakashi,_ the remaining rational portion of his brain told him quietly.

He drew one hand out of Naruto's shirt and fumbled for a second with the doorknob. _Priorities,_ he told it, pulling the blonde inside with him. Naruto's jacket was already off.

The door snapped shut behind them.

_ end chapter eight _


	9. Epilogue

Epilogue

by Ember

-

If you can hear a piano fall

You can hear me coming down the hall

And if I could just hear your pretty voice

I don't think I need to see at all

Don't think I'd need to see at all

Soft hand and a velvet tongue

Gonna give you what you give to me

And every breath that is in your lungs

Is a tiny little gift to me

Is a tiny little gift to me

-

_A year later..._

The little restaurant wasn't made for this sort of thing. Ichiraku Ramen almost creaked at the seams, full to bursting with loud, more-or-less excited Genin- from left to right were Shikamaru, then Chouji, then Ino; Sakura with two empty seats to her right; Kiba, then Hinata, then Shino. The whole place filled with scent as miso ramen was cooked in huge pots, dished into bowls and half-thrown down the counter to the ordering Genin. Kiba had three empty bowls in front of him and was giving Akamaru, once more zipped up inside his jacket, little chunks of pork and long noodles. Hinata was still working on her first bowl, Ino was ordering her second, Shikamaru was sucking the last bit of broth out of his second bowl before Chouji, who had a stack of a half-dozen empty bowls in front of him, stole it from him. Sakura was waiting patiently before starting, and Shino hadn't spoken up to order or really said anything since he'd gotten there.

When the door finally opened again, Naruto of course preceeded Sasuke into the restaurant, a huge grin on his face which he only ever wore in two situations, one of which was when he was being when presented with ramen. The darker-haired Genin followed him, a little behind, wincing slightly at the noise when he came in and again at the impact of the scent. Naruto threw himself into his seat beside Sakura, leaving the seat between the blonde and Kiba for Sasuke.

Sasuke really preferred to avoid situations that called for close contact with his peers. To his utmost horror, after Ino and Sakura got over the shock of losing their crush forever, they found his- nonconventional sexuality...

"Well, Naruto! You're forty-five minutes late and it's a ramen-oriented event! It seems to me like _some_ people may have been having an early Valentines Day present... Hmm? Do either of them smell like leather, Kiba?"

...Extremely amusing.

As Sasuke took his seat, Naruto grinned evilly and, waving two fingers in the air for the chef behind the counter to see, leaned in close to whisper something inaudible to his audience of the two giggling girls. Sasuke rolled his eyes skyward and remained silent until their food was brought, then his broke his chopsticks apart and pulled a string of noodles out of the broth, sucking the flavor out of the wood as he swallowed. Of course, they were late because they'd been practicing- and, to Naruto's disappointment, practicing nothing more exciting than hand seals. A holiday wasn't really an excuse not to train, especially not a stupid and irrelevant one like Valentines Day.

Of all the holidays- and there weren't many he _liked_- Sasuke perhaps hated Valentines most.

Naruto, of course, had been overly-excited, boucing around, sneaking up behind Sasuke to cover his eyes with his hands or give him a kiss on the cheek. Sasuke hated that, too. Well, maybe not all of it. But most of it. Some of it, at least. He'd spent more time than ever training, though even then it was hard to avoid the blonde- which most of the time, for the record, wasn't that bad. It had been under the theory that it wouldn't be bad at all that Sasuke had agreed to let him move in, and while the _kyuubi_ vessel hadn't been _that _bad of a roommate, between Christmas and Valentines the black-haired shinobi was close to the edge. Did he have to _enthuse_ all over _everything_?

Well, of course he did. He was Naruto.

And it was because the blonde was indeed himself that Sasuke had allowed himself to be talked into coming to Sakura's asinine Valentines 'party,' such as it was. Because he had made the stupid 'puppy-dog' eyes and begged in that annoyingly nasal tone of voice that he only used regarding ramen and sex, and because he said 'please' enough times that the 'l' infliction was starting to blur out and each repitition was starting to blend with the one before it. It was either pathetically endearing or adorably pathetic, but either way Sasuke had, in the end, given in.

After all, it was an hour at most. How bad could it be?

"So," Ino started, grinning evilly; Naruto glanced up at her as he dived into his second bowl; Sasuke stared at him and took the second bite of his first. He never did get used to that. "Which one of you is better?"

Sasuke was close enough to a spit-take that Kiba choked on laughter at the look on his face. Naruto, being Naruto, was unphased. "I am," he replied without hesitation. Then, "At what?"

Shikamaru sighed and rolled his eyes. "What do you think, Naruto? She's Ino."

Naruto paused, his chopsticks stuck in his mouth. "Oh," he said around the wood.

Sasuke smirked and reached over with his own, stealing a chunk of pork out of Naruto's bowl. The blonde looked indignant as his lover chewed, but regained his equilibrium before the dark-haired Genin had swallowed. "Well, _that_ goes without saying."

"Yeah, I guess it does," Sasuke responded sarcastically.

The _kyuubi_ vessel glared at Sasuke hotly, his blue eyes narrowed. "What're you saying?" he asked.

Sasuke only snorted and smirked half-sarcastically down at the blonde; Naruto rolled his eyes skyward but looked placated. Sakura was smiling, Kiba looked like he had something sarcastic to say but given that Hinata was more in his lap than beside him, he decided against saying it.

Shikamaru rolled his eyes and let Chouji pull the bowl of ramen from in front of him. "Idiots."

Chouji looked over at him and seemed to figure out what was bothing his brillant teammate; he stopped with his next bite halfway to his mouth and smiled over at Shikamaru. "You know, Shika-kun," he said, quietly, "you might _not _be doomed for love." He looked faintly amused, stuffing the waiting bite into his mouth as soon as he was done, before it cooled off.

Shikamaru waved to the waiter and asked for two more bowls, a replacement for his own and a new one for Chouji. "Nah. Not worth it."

Chouji shrugged and drank the last of the broth from Shikamaru's bowl. "I'm just saying," he said, as Naruto whispered something that elicted a burst of giggling from Ino and Sakura and a cuff to the back of the head from Sasuke. "Maybe someday you'll, you know, find someone who doesn't ask a lot of you. Like, someone who just wants... you know. You for Shikamaru."

The genius-nin looked over, one eyebrow raised, at Chouji, who blushed and stared down at the beached spice leaves on the bottom of his bowl.

"Maybe." And then he leaned over to kiss the pudgy shinobi on the cheek, and set into his new ramen with a slightly increased vigor.

-

"Oh, come on, Sasuke. It wasn't _that_ bad."

The black-haired Genin shot Naruto a death-glare that could have shot down a golem. Naruto, who had seen it before, didn't blink. "Maybe not to _you_," Sasuke growled bitterly, "but then again, all you did was sit around and make up stories about our sex life."

"So?"

"So! You do that anyway! You don't have to go out and drag me out in order to do it!"

Naruto shook his head, the blonde mane of his hair becoming even less organized than it was. "Come on. You had fun."

"I did not."

Naruto grinned and half-jogged after Sasuke, who was heading silently for the stairs. He caught him halfway and slid his arm around the darker boy's shoulders, wrapping his other arm around Sasuke's waist. The other paused, silently waiting.

"I got you a present!"

Sasuke writhed from Naruto's grip, starting to walk away again. "You asshole. I told you, I hate this holiday. I specifically told you not to get me anything."

It was under the chair in the family room. Naruto fell to his knees, grabbed it, then began running after Sasuke, who was already almost upstairs. "I didn't listen to you. Wait! You bastard, stop and open it!"

"I don't want it." Was he going for the bedroom? Why was he going there? Was he going to lock Naruto out? Naruto couldn't be locked out of his bedroom by his boyfriend on Valentines Day, it would ruin the whole holiday!

To his relief, Sasuke left the door open and sat tiredly down on his side of the bed, glaring nails at the blonde when he walked in. Naruto grinned brightly and handed it to him, careful not to damage the wrapping any more than being applied by Naruto had already damaged it. Sasuke scowled.

"Open it," Naruto urged. He gave his best Naruto smile until Sasuke finally caved in and slid his forefinger under the paper, moving it so that the tape popped up and he was able to pull the paper off without ripping it. This was his house and Naruto trashed it enough as it was; he had to keep it neat or wade through his own trashed posessions.

Sasuke glared down at the present to the best of his ability. It was hard when a miniscule smile, risking the same quick snuff all such expressions risked when they dared appear on the genius Genin's face risked, was starting to manifest.

"What the fuck is this?"

Naruto saw the smile and smiled back, leaning over the framed picture beside his teammate. "It's that picture Iruka-san took of us, remember? With you and me and Kakashi and Sakura...?"

"I remember, idiot. Why did you get it framed?"

The blonde shrugged. "Well, Sakura and I both got our's framed, and your's was just sitting there, on top of your television, like you didn't care about it either way."

"I don't," Sasuke replied coldly as he set the fucking picture sitting upright on the desk by his side of the bed. Naruto grinned to himself, not even noticing as Sasuke's hand plunged under his pillow and came back until the black-haired ninja was holding a red-foil present in front of his face.

If Sasuke's hand had come back with a long and bloodied knife, a small animal, or a cursing, drunken leprechaun, Naruto wouldn't have looked more surprised. "You got me a present?" The package was weirdly shaped, almost triangular, but with rounded corners; despite its odd form it was strangely perfectly wrapped.

"Just open it, idiot." Sasuke wasn't looking at him or the picture, like he didn't want any further reminders that he was, indeed, a human inside.

With a shrug, Naruto pulled the ribbon off the top, cutting through the tangled knot with his teeth, then slowly slid the wrapping paper off of his Valentine's Day present. His fingers slid down the smooth sides, the round corners. It was dark brown, plastic, with a round top that, despite its plastic seal, let go a sweet scent. It was...

"Chocolate syrup?" Naruto looked, confused, over at Sasuke, to see a sudden smile that left no room for confusion. Long fingers curled around his orange jacket, pulling him to the edge of the bed, Sasuke's lips pressing against the blonde's. Sasuke pulled him onto the bed, sliding on top of him, pressing the two together until the kiss became a full-body caress, their hearts racing, eyes squeezed shut. Sasuke slid his present from Naruto's hand and curled his free arm around the blonde's shoulders.

Naruto leaned into the kiss, leaned into the contact, and moaned loudly into Sasuke's mouth, a ferverent and passionate sound broken only by the quiet pop of the syrup bottle opening.

_ end _


End file.
